Officials say BLM harvest targets don’t guarantee timber receipts for Josephine County

During its July 31 session, Josephine County legal counsel Wally Hicks told the Board that the Bureau of Land Management had adopted a resource-management plan targeting "approximately 500 million board feet of annual harvest," but cautioned that the County could not assume that volume would generate timber receipts in the election year due to preparation, market and litigation risks. Hicks stressed that timber-sale advertising, award, completion and payment processes can lag, complicating year-to-year budgeting.

Hicks also reported that, despite a recent assumption in some quarters that removal of a federal 25 percent surcharge would increase counties' O&C receipt share to 75 percent, "Senator Wyden's office had confirmed with the Department of the Interior that the payment rate would remain at 50 percent because the governing Secure Rural Schools legislation had not been amended." Commissioners noted Douglas and Jackson Counties had signaled intentions to elect timber receipts, but that those counties hold larger O&C acreages and different local considerations; Josephine County officials highlighted lost local milling infrastructure and uncertain local market conditions as factors limiting near-term revenue realization from increased harvest targets.