Commissioner: 'They've solved nothing'
By Dan Bain KPIC NewsROSEBURG, Ore. -- A Douglas County Commissioner was back in Washington D.C. last week for the annual board meeting of the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition, and lobbying for counties that have been devastated by the lack of timber harvesting on public lands. MultimediaDouglas County is seeing safety net money melt away, and the hope was that the Western Oregon Timber Plan would start providing some much needed funding for the western Oregon counties that live off of timber receipts. Commissioner Doug Robertson met with Obama administration officials last weekend to tell them about the grim financial situation the counties are in. He says it's tough to get past the health care issues in Washington right now. "The reality is, as you look at what's happened with the new BLM plans being set aside, very little is happening on the Forest Service in terms of any kind of meaningful volume or certainly no jobs being created. Any of the stewardship projects don't create revenue for the county. So, we're in the same situation we've been in, frankly since 1993 when the first safety net went into place," said Robertson. Robertson says the BLM's Western Oregon Plan Revision could have made a big impact on funding for the counties and schools, but he says the plan presented by the Obama administration for several dozen timber sales in western Oregon is an insignificant amount of timber. "I think the direct contact we had on the secretary's level back there with Secretary Bill Sak and Secretary Salazar of the Interior made it very clear. They've solved nothing relative to forest health, relative to increasing management on these lands, habitat improvement or anything else, and certainly they haven't made any strides towards job creation." Robertson, who returned from D.C. on Saturday, says they know it's going to be tough to get the safety net authorized again. Meanwhile, the safety net payments to counties that used to rely on timber harvest receipts is quickly running out. |
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February 9, 2012
- Roseburg, Oregon
