DNR scrambling to replace county timber revenue

Fluctuations in timber markets and legal wrangling in courts is having an effect on the revenue Wahkiakum County will receive from harvest of timber on its state-managed timber trust lands.

Timber revenue is an important part of the county's Current Expense Fund budget and contributes about $1.12 million per year.

Steve Ogden, district manager of the Department of Natural Resources, which manages the trust timberlands, reported Wednesday that the county could have a good year in 2011 and a bad year in 2012. Agency foresters are taking steps to address the latter issue, he said.

Actual distribution of timber revenue to the county in 2011 should be around $1.149 million, Ogden reported.

Two sales timed for harvest in 2012 have been withdrawn because of a court challenge from environmentalists who argue that logging the timber there and in certain other sales in western Washington would harm habitat of marbled murrelets, an endangered species.

Consequently, 2012 revenues could total as low as $63,000, county officials said.

However, the DNR is preparing a new sale that would be logged in 2012 and produce around $1.1 million, Ogden said. That sale would go on the market in June, 2012, and the sale would be designed for logging the same year.

Commissioner Dan Cothren, who sits on the timber counties committee of the Washington Association of Counties and who has been working with DNR administrators on legislation that would compensate small counties for timberland encumbered by marbled murrelet habitat restrictions, commented that the two withdrawn sales won't likely get back on schedule for several years. The legal challenge is going to cause the DNR and state Department of Fish and Wildlife to amend the habitat conservation plan for the marbled murrelets.

Treasurer Paula Holloway commented that the board of commissioners should build up a reserve fund for 2012, or the county won't have any money to use in the first part of the year.

The replacement sale goes up for bid in June, and revenue wouldn't start coming in till later in the year, she said.