Tom Insko, Boise Cascade's Inland Region manager, sees a "train wreck" coming in his industry.

"It's pretty hard to be optimistic," Insko told a Union County Chamber of Commerce luncheon forum Tuesday at the La Grande Country Club. "We're an industry operating at only partial capacity."

Insko, who appeared along with Wallowa-Whitman National Forest District Ranger Kurt Wiedenmann and John Warness of Forest Capital Partners, said the causes for current hard times include declining federal timber availability, over-harvest of private lands and a downturn in housing starts.

"We're down in all our markets," said Insko, who oversees four plants in Union County and three more in Kettle Falls, Wash.

Boise's Inland Region has 1,050 employees, 700 of them in Union County. Facilities in La Grande and Elgin have seen curtailments lately, and work has slowed at the particleboard plant in Island City.

Insko reminded his listeners of the importance of Boise's contributions to the local economy.

"We offer family-wage jobs, a pension, health benefits, and we obviously have an impact on associated businesses," he said.

Insko said the local timber industry has been severely hurt by U.S. Forest Service timber harvest policies.

Using figures provided by the Forest Service, he said the three national forests in Eastern Oregon's so-called "Iron Triangle" — The Wallowa-Whitman, Malheur and Umatilla — have grown almost 800 million board feet of timber since 1996, and allowed half of it to die.

The three forests comprise 5.5 million acres, with 2.5 million acres available for harvest.

But in 2005, the forests produced just 45 million board feet of timber, according to figures cited by Insko.

"That is not enough wood to support even one facility," he said.

Insko said the short supply of timber on both public and private lands has forced his company to go further afield in its search for raw materials.

"We've expanded our procurement circle," he said. "We've had to go more than 350 miles to get logs. By going further out, we're adding to the inefficiencies."

While Insko said he doesn't fault local Forest Service managers, he said he believes policy formulated in Washington, D.C., is misguided.

"We have a great relationship with the Forest Service here," he said. "But the focus on wildfire suppression versus forest management is wrong. It has turned the forests into a liability for taxpayers."

He added that public misconceptions about sound management have also played a part.

"The bigger issue is how the public has been convinced it's bad to harvest trees," he said. "My argument is, a healthy forest and a healthy industry aren't mutually exclusive, they're mutually dependent."

Wiedenmann didn't dispute anything Insko said, and he spent no time apologizing for Forest Service practices. Yet he did acknowledge the hardships being placed on the local timber industry.

He noted that the Forest Service has been grappling with issues such as timber production, water quality, wildlife habitat and livestock grazing since its founding 100 years ago.

"These are public lands and there is controversy on how we manage them," he said.

He said the timber sale process is complex and expensive, and that litigation with environmental groups is a part of almost every national forest timber sale.

But he pointed out that logging in the Wallowa-Whitman hasn't come to a complete standstill.

"We have traditional timber sales going on at any point in time," he said.

He said current activities include a timber treatment sale on Mount Emily and a salvage sale in the Spring Creek area.

He said he likes the concept behind so-called stewardship contracts, where companies like Boise trade work for goods. Boise is currently involved in a stewardship project on Mount Emily.

"Stewardship contracts give us the ability to get a lot more work done on the land. We've been very successful with them," Wiedenmann said.

Warness was the last speaker of the day, profiling his company and explaining its business model.

He said Forest Capital Partners, founded in 2001, is a timber management company with holdings throughout the United States.

The company manages 330,000 acres of timber in the La Grande area and has a 10-year contract to provide Boise Cascade with timber.

He said the contract requires his company to sell 60 percent of its harvest to Boise.

"The rest goes on the open market," he said, noting that Forest Capital sells logs to most mills in Eastern Oregon.

During a question-and-answer session following the talks, one chamber member asked Insko what people might do to help.

He urged community involvement, saying that political leaders and the public need to be better educated on the issues.

"Write letters to the editor, and letters to your congressman," he said. "Understand this isn't just a local problem, it's a national one. Get your relatives back East to write, too."

http://www.lagrandeobserver.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=9772