Counties hiring consultant to review murrelet report

Washington's small timber counties continue to press state and federal officials to allow harvest of timber from state managed, county trust timberlands.

Commissioners from Pacific and Wahkiakum counties are contracting with the Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC) to hire a biological consultant to review and comment on "the science of marbled murrelet conservation, including the state Department of Natural Resources's (DNR) September, 2008, science team report."

The assessment is part of an effort the counties are making to get compensation for, or partial use of, their trust timberlands that have been held back from logging because they may qualify as critical habitat for the endangered murrelet.

On Tuesday, the Wahkiakum County board of commissioners voted 3-0 to contract with WSAC to share in the cost of the consultant's assessment.

The move came just days after commission Chair Dan Cothren journeyed to Olympia for the signing of a bill that will allow small trust timber counties to pool resources to buy timberlands on the open market and share in the proceeds from logging them.

House Bill 2329 is the second step in a strategy Cothren has developed with officials from other counties and the DNR, which manages the counties' trust timber lands for a percentage of harvest proceeds.

Following the rise of environmental protections for endangered northern spotted owls in the 1990s, the counties entered into Habitat Conservation Plans with the DNR and other agencies. Under the HCP, the DNR would manage lands to protect endangered species but harvests would continue on the lands in a manner that didn't impact the endangered species.

However, in the late 1990s, the marbled murrelet was declared endangered, and the DNR withdrew timberland that included possible habitat for murrelets while it developed a habitat management plan for the murrelets.

Counties took the issue to the legislature, which passed a bill setting up a method for counties to be compensated for the encumbered timberlands. Wahkiakum County is due to receive its first payment this June, and the bill signed last Friday provides an avenue for the county to purchase more timberland to generate revenue for the counties.

Cothren said county officials feel there also could be more logging on encumbered lands. They feel that the DNR, with the 2008 report prepared by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, was overly broad in its restrictions, and their assessment will review the report and the science used to make its conclusions.

Cothren said the WSAC consultant is a former member of the habitat conservation planning process and is respected in the scientific community.

The long term goal, Cothren said, is for Wahkiakum County to acquire enough timberland to become self-sufficient.

"It's kind of a have-to deal," he said Tuesday.