Funds restored for forest study

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A federal agency restored funding Wednesday for a study that has provided hard evidence for conservationists opposing the Bush administration’s policy of logging after wildfires.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s decision to lift its suspension of the final year of a three-year grant came after Oregon State University said it had complied with provisions that barred it from using any grant money to lobby Congress and required its researchers to inform a BLM scientist about plans to publish in a scientific journal.

“Both sides have agreed to work together to continue the long productive relationship gathering science and data on the ground,” said BLM spokesman Chris Strebig.

In a letter to BLM, OSU noted that the editor in chief of Science magazine had acknowledged his staff included the reference to “informing the debate” over a salvage logging bill pending in Congress in supplemental material posted online, not the actual article, even after the researchers had told them to remove it. The Bush administration has backed the bill.

Moreover, Peggy S. Lowry, institutional authorizing official at OSU, wrote that the two lead researchers had shown a PowerPoint presentation of their findings to the BLM scientist overseeing their work and explained that they were submitting it for publication.

Stephanie A. Coleman, chief of BLM Oregon’s procurement branch, responded in writing to OSU that she accepted the explanation as a “miscommunication” between the researchers and the BLM.

“We are very happy and our students will be very happy when they hear the news as well,” said OSU vice President Luanne Lawrence.

The study led by graduate student Daniel Donato found salvage logging after the 2002 Biscuit fire killed naturally regenerated seedlings and increased, in the short term, the amount of fuel on the ground to feed future fires.