Candidate Dave Upthegrove is keeping a campaign promise, vowing he would take 77,000 acres of state logging lands out of production; now elected, Public Lands Commissioner Upthegrove is following through.
But impacts of his unilateral decision, announced on Tiger Mountain in Issaquah Aug. 26, will cascade into every corner of the state. Local governments, including many schools already struggling financially, depend on proceeds of the potential sales he just axed. And a limited number of mills that power the state’s forest products industry will lose out on inventory that will cost jobs and could lead some to close.
Upthegrove chose the stroke of a pen over giving those voices their chance to weigh in.
His go-it-alone decision included no hearings in the Washington State Legislature nor even an approval by the Board of Natural Resources that he chairs. At the board’s most recent meeting, several affected local governments and businesses expressed surprise over the announcement, and could only air their concerns during routine, two-minute, public comment period.
“Counties are the primary beneficiaries of these working trust lands, and to be excluded from such a significant decision is eroding our ability to maintain trust,” testified Court Stanley, a Washington State Association of Counties’ consultant.
The commissioner is out over his skis. The Department of Natural Resources’ mandated stewardship of public lands “for the support of common schools,” and other local governments, dates to the state’s founding. Of 3 million acres of trust lands, roughly half are now conserved, and what is still logged uses DNR’s sustainable harvest practices inculcated by leading forestry scientists to preserve biodiversity, clean air and water, and the richest possible habitat.
Rather than engage in a public process that results in a careful and deliberate recalibration toward conservation, Upthegrove chose by fiat a policy cheered by his campaign supporters but that has far-reaching and unexamined impacts around the state. His decision also undermined a balance between production and preservation on state lands carefully developed over decades.
Worse yet, Upthegrove’s decision exacerbates an existing funding crisis for local schools, particularly in rural areas. The American Forest Resource Council, a timber trade association, estimates trust beneficiaries, as well as the DNR itself, could lose around $2 billion in revenues over the next two decades.
What these lands support isn’t trivial. Consider the Frailey Sure timber sale northeast of Arlington. Approved by DNR’s board at this month’s meeting, state foresters examined 156 acres for logging. They reduced that down to 60 acres to protect streams, unstable slopes and the most critical habitat. But those 60 still pack a punch for local government: nearly $780,000 to pave roads, support hospitals and local libraries, not to mention about a quarter of a million dollars to the Sedro-Woolley School District.
Those sales will be rarer. The district once expected about $3 million a year in timber sales. That’s down to about $500,000 today.
“It’s one of those funding sources that used to level the playing field,” said Brian Isakson, a 30-year educator currently serving as Sedro-Woolley School District’s interim superintendent. “We can’t count on that anymore.”
Mount Baker School District near Bellingham has watched its timber revenues fall from an average of $1.2 million a year to about $100,000 over the last decade, following an outcry against logging in Whatcom County. It now finds itself on the verge of insolvency each year, one of eight Washington school districts already under financial oversight, known as binding conditions, by the state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The State Legislature, which provides the bulk of education funding, is already mired in a fiscal mess, and is likely to be short on the revenues it needs to balance the budget in the upcoming January session. Upthegrove’s shortchanging of districts digs a deeper hole that will compound lawmakers’ headaches.
Upthegrove did announce a plan to pursue diversified revenue sources like carbon offset markets that could aid in preserving the most biodiverse tree stands. He chose to pursue it in the right way: by committing to work with lawmakers in the state Legislature to pass a bill.
A review of harvest lands to determine whether such carbon markets could preserve pockets DNR foresters find are the richest in biodiversity and carbon sequestration is a worthy goal. But the commissioner admitted in January such “ecosystem services” would add mere “pennies on the dollar,” next to timber harvest.
The commissioner’s admittedly in a tough spot. Environmental groups’ lawsuits have stalled the logging of “legacy” forests — a moniker incorrectly ascribed by those groups to lands logged before World War II with the potential to become old growth. (In forestry, a legacy tree or forest is a remnant that has survived a disturbance like a fire or windstorm). He is attempting to thread a needle.
But the pause in sales is taking a toll. Before Upthegrove took office, DNR had planned to log 583 million board feet in its fiscal year running from July 2024 to July 2025. Instead, only 390 million board feet was placed for sale.
While litigation and fluctuating market prices do play a role in that decline, his approach removes some of the most biomass rich logs from harvest and eliminates specialty timber used, for example, to make utility poles. A reduction of those logs means more expensive and carbon-intense concrete and steel will have to be used — which flies in the face of the carbon sequestration benefits he’s touting by preserving the 77,000 acres.
Upthegrove’s untransparent political decision uproots decades of consensus-building between scientists, environmentalists and the timber industry to best manage Washington’s public forests. Diminishing revenues from timber sales will deprive cash-strapped school districts and hurt local governments that fund fire and emergency response, infrastructure upkeep, and more.
Slow your roll, commissioner, and commit to a public vetting of your plan, before communities around Washington suffer further.
