Timber Harvest Expected To Be Close To Projections

The Forest Service should come close to the timber harvest projections in President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan by next year, Chief Jack Ward Thomas told Congress on Thursday.

Agency officials also told a House panel they expect to net about 300 million board feet of timber in salvage logging in Eastern Oregon and Washington this year, but little if any west of the Cascade Mountains.

“Frankly I had hoped those numbers would be a little higher,” Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said during a congressional hearing.

Congressmen questioned Thomas before the House Appropriations subcommittee on the Interior about why Clinton’s 2-year-old plan was falling short of his estimated annual harvests of 1.1 billion board feet.

The chief said the delay is due primarily to a federal court order that until recently prevented the Forest Service from keeping up on its timber sale preparations.

“The pipelines were absolutely empty,” Thomas said.

This year’s harvests could approach 1 billion board feet when salvage logging is added to the equation. Deputy Forest Service Chief Gray Reynolds said he anticipates 280 million to 380 million board feet of salvage timber could be logged east of the Cascade Mountains.