Trading Away the West Home


Part 6 / The Future

Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company

Posted at 03:20 a.m. PDT; Friday, October 2, 1998

After two years of wrangling, decision on massive Plum Creek trade nears

Background and Related Info.

by Jim Simon, Eric Nalder, Danny Westneat and Deborah Nelson

Through two years of negotiating, Plum Creek Timber has offered the U.S. Forest Service a simple choice: complete a trade for 60,000 acres of the company's land by the end of 1998, or Plum Creek will start logging it.

As the deadline approaches, the company is still waiting for the answer.

In the next few days, the Forest Service will provide part of it. The agency will release its final recommendations on the proposed deal, in which the timber company would swap the 60,000 acres of alpine backcountry in the Cascades for 17,000 acres of prime public timberland.

The exchange, which involves more real estate than the cities of Seattle and Tacoma combined, would be the largest land trade in the Northwest in 50 years.

Congress, at the urging of Plum Creek, is considering whether to order acceptance of the deal - an order that would largely insulate the trade from legal challenges.

That legislation, sponsored by Republican Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington, has upset even some backers of the exchange, who believe it would short-circuit public review. Plum Creek has been negotiating possible compromises with Washington's junior senator, Democrat Patty Murray, whose support is seen as crucial.

But if the bill doesn't pass, Plum Creek says the proposed trade will likely die along with it.

"What we're saying is that if people want to see less cutting on our lands in the Cascades, then we need to get this deal done now," said William Brown, vice president of Seattle-based Plum Creek.

That seemingly simple choice masks the increasingly complex trade-offs for both federal land managers and the public in such large deals.

While the law requires that the land on both sides of a federal trade be of equal monetary value, long-term conservation values aren't neatly measured in dollars or board feet of commercial timber.

The land that would be obtained by the Forest Service would expand Puget Sound's backcountry playground, putting some spectacular hiking trails and alpine scenery into public ownership.

The Forest Service says the biggest beneficiaries would be spotted owls, bears and other creatures. The trade would eliminate much of the patchwork of public/private ownership in the Cascades, creating a solid corridor of protected wildlife habitat on both sides of Interstate 90.

To package what Plum Creek seeks - low-elevation, mature timber near Western Washington sawmills - the Forest Service had to offer land in three national forests. But these days in the Northwest, there is a constituency for virtually every swath of forest spared from urban sprawl or logging.

"The question isn't whether the land we might get is valuable," said Liz Tanke of the Northwestern Ecosystem Alliance, which hasn't taken a position on the trade. "It's what are you willing to trade for it?"

Steve Whitney, Northwest director of the Wilderness Society, says his organization wouldn't have worried much about that question 10 years ago. Now, though, there is concern about not only saving favorite hiking spots and remnants of wilderness, but entire ecosystems.

"The problem is that there isn't enough land left to trade away anymore," Whitney said. "We've cut ourselves into a corner. We're rearranging the deck chairs in the Cascades, but there aren't enough chairs to go around."

Washington's congressional delegation is solidly behind the trade. But environmental organizations - those who traditionally put the stamp of approval on land trades in the Cascades - are all over the landscape.

Some groups are strong backers of the exchange. Other would-be supporters are opposing the legislation, upset it would make appeals and legal challenges difficult. Still others argue it's foolhardy to trade away any mature or old-growth forest, no matter what taxpayers get in return.

While many federal land trades are hammered out far from the public eye, the Plum Creek exchange has been heavily scrutinized. The timber company has courted public support, spelling out its plans at numerous forums and negotiating details with conservation groups and Indian tribes.

Much of the scrutiny is a matter of timing: The deal is being debated as the government's land-exchange program, riddled by complaints that some deals have shortchanged taxpayers, is coming under a microscope.

The attention has helped to reshape the original I-90 proposal.

Some controversial parcels slated for trade, including one of the last roadless blocks in the Green River basin, will stay in public ownership because of objections from conservationists. The total amount of Forest Service land proposed for trade has been reduced by about half.

To understand the complexity of land exchanges, visit Silver Creek, a breathtaking alpine valley near Cle Elum.

If the trade goes through, Silver Creek will become public property. Its hillsides are covered with old-growth trees. Summer hikers are greeted by a wildflower-filled meadow. A scramble up the ridgetop offers views of Mount Rainier and Mount Adams - and of the heavily logged terrain that surrounds the valley.

Silver Creek has been spared because logging would require building expensive switchback roads through a steep gorge. At 4,000 feet, the hemlock and Douglas fir didn't grow as dense, swiftly or profitably as the low-elevation stands that were plentiful until a decade or so.

These days, Plum Creek Timber says it could make money harvesting the trees there, and has applied to build a logging road into the area.

But a good portion of Silver Creek's value lies in the public's desire for preserving such backcountry jewels.

Plum Creek knows that, and spokesman Bob Jirsa said parcels such as Silver Creek are bargaining chips in the effort to complete such a large trade. Environmental groups and even many Forest Service officials initially preferred a smaller trade.

"We need a big swap or nothing," Jirsa said. "Once we give up Silver Creek and some of these other lands of ours that everyone wants, there's not much incentive left for the Forest Service to exchange with us.

"This is the last best chance."

Plum Creek busy trading

These days, Plum Creek might be called "The Tree Swapping Company." No other company is pushing land exchanges with the federal government more aggressively. It has 10 proposed swaps in the works, involving everything from sections of the Lewis & Clark Trail in Montana to rattlesnake habitat in Arkansas.

That's partially because Plum Creek owns a lot of parcels like Silver Creek, where logging is guaranteed to spark a fight.

A decade ago, Plum Creek was branded the "Darth Vader" of the timber industry for clear-cutting along I-90. How different Plum Creek's logging practices were from others in the industry is debatable, but the scars it caused were visible to countless passing motorists.

In this trade, Plum Creek would acquire far less visible lands.

"Clearly, for Plum Creek, this exchange would allow us to take somewhat of a lower profile in Western Washington," said Brown.

Just two years ago, the Forest Service completed a large trade in the Cascades with Weyerhaeuser, derided by critics as "trees for stumps." The timber giant got 4,300 acres of mature, commercial forest. The public got 30,000 acres of heavily logged lands, some of which, experts say, are so badly damaged they won't be productive forests for at least another century.

Plum Creek's trade, by contrast, is much more a trees-for-trees swap.

For the past two years, Plum Creek has deferred logging on most of the land it would trade, which amounts to nearly 20 percent of its timber in the state. Brown says the company will start cutting there if the deal isn't completed by the end of the year.

Dave Atcheson of the Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project argues that some of the Plum Creek lands being offered are cut over and a low priority for public ownership. "There shouldn't be an urgency to find trees to trade for that stuff," he said.

He said the Forest Service should pare its wish list of Plum Creek lands to acquire, then seek money from Congress to buy them.

But Len Gardner of the Alpine Lakes Protection Society, which supports the trade, believes that's an unrealistic stand. Plum Creek has said it wants timber, not cash, for its lands. And Congress has appropriated very little money in recent years for land acquisition.

"If you think the land is important to save, you need a trade," said Gardner. "There aren't a lot of choices here."

For now, much of the debate revolves around who should have the final say. The Forest Service says it is on track to complete the deal by the end of the year. But Plum Creek wants congressional approval because it is convinced that, without it, lengthy appeals or lawsuits could block any exchange from going into effect for years.

Plum Creek executives say they learned a lesson from the Weyerhaeuser trade. Environmental groups and tribes sued unsuccessfully to stop that exchange. Just as importantly, it spawned the creation of the Seattle-based Western Land Exchange Project, a watchdog group that has helped to organize opposition to federal land trades nationwide.

"There are groups out there who believe there is never justification for the Forest Service to trade one stick of mature timber for cutover land," said Andy Wiessner, a consultant to Plum Creek.

"Plum Creek isn't willing to take the risk that this is going to be tied up for years in litigation."

Unlike many other land exchanges ordered by Congress, there will be a full financial appraisal and environmental-impact statement on the I-90 trade.

Still, the legislation is a tough sell for some potential supporters of the exchange. The Wilderness Society's Whitney says his group opposes the bill because it would effectively remove the last layer of public review.

"Plum Creek had taken steps to involve the public in this thing," said Whitney. "I think they misread the tea leaves by taking it to Congress. It dissuaded me from being much of a cooperative partner."


Background & Related Info.
Details of proposed Plum Creek land exchange
Possible solutions to land-trade problems


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