Commissioner lobbies natural resources board

Wahkiakum County Commissioner Dan Cothren took his concerns about the harvest of timber from county timber trust lands to the state Board of Natural Resources on Monday.

Cothren testified at the board's meeting, urging the commission to stand up to environmentalists threatening to file suits to block harvest of timber on land that could be habitat for endangered marbled murrelets.

The department has withdrawn sales, including one on county timber trust land, under the threat of suits.

The county needs the revenue, Cothren said. Peter Goldmark, director of the Department of Natural Resources, has said the department will provide at least $1.2 million from sales in 2012, but Cothren said it could be a hollow benefit.

The county has almost 13,000 acres of trust timber land in two blocks, one north of Skamokawa and the other lying east of the Elochoman River. The Skamokawa block has old timber meeting the description of murrelet habitat and hasn't been harvested since the department began working on a management plan over 10 years ago. That means logging is occurring in the Elochoman block, and Cothren says the amount of harvestable timber in the block will be depleted in a few years, leaving the county in a bind.