The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) auctioned off the Dabbler timber last week, but the lawsuit by the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition and Friends of Clark County still stands.
Alicia Leduc Montgomery, managing attorney for the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition and Friends of Clark County, said the auction doesn’t change anything, and if the lawsuit filed prevails then the timber company will not be allowed to harvest the Dabbler site.
The Dabbler Legacy Forest auction took place on Thursday, Jan. 30, fetching nearly 80% above its appraised value. Stimson Lumber Co., with multiple lumber yards in Oregon, won the auction with a bid of $5.2 million. From that, the Battle Ground Public Schools district would gain $1,013,411.17, Clark County Roads Department would gain $634,830.94 and North Country EMS would gain $225,644.77, among other beneficiaries, according to the American Forest Resource Council.
Leduc Montgomery said that had the lawsuit prevailed ahead of auction, DNR could not have proceeded with the sale.
The purpose of the lawsuit, however, isn’t solely to prevent the removal of trees that could become old growth later, Leduc Montgomery said. It’s about the timber sale not complying with the law. She said DNR is required to designate at least 10% of its wooded land as structurally complex forest.
“So the planning unit where Dabbler is located is called the Columbia Planning Unit … and DNR’s own public records data shows the public that protected structurally complex forests constitute just 2% of the entire planning unit,” Leduc Montgomery said. “But DNR is required to designate at least 10%. So the core of the lawsuit is that the DNR has an obligation. It has policies and procedures on the books that say you have to set aside and protect at least 10% of each planning unit to basically become the old growth of tomorrow so that we’re ensuring there’s a place for these endangered species to live.”
She added that the lawsuit also maintains that DNR is nearing its deadline to designate the minimum 10% of structurally complex forest protected in each planning area, and landing at just 2% is extremely far from the goal.
“So why, if they’re required to at least protect at a minimum 10%, and they’ve only protected 2%, are they cutting down the very forests they are required to protect?” Leduc Montgomery said. “And it just doesn’t make sense to say, ‘We have to meet a 10% threshold, and we haven’t, so we’re just going to cut the forests anyways, even though these are the exact type of forest we’re supposed to be putting into this 10% category.’ ”
She compared it to if a kid comes home from school and plays video games before doing homework.
“That’s what’s going on here, is they’re trying to delay and say we’ll do it later,” Leduc Montgomery said of DNR’s current practices. “But they’re running out of forest because they keep cutting it down.”
On Jan. 17, new DNR Commissioner Dave Upthegrove’s first action was to put a “timeout” on harvesting older state forests, but Dabbler was not included.
“During this pause, DNR will deploy cutting edge technology to better identify and map the characteristics of the forests the agency manages to effectively meet DNR’s Policy for Sustainable Forests of conserving 10 to 15 percent of structurally complex forests,” the Jan. 17 release states. “... Some paused sales could be reconfigured and brought forward to auction once the criteria to exclude structurally complex forests that are critical to carbon storage and habitat biodiversity are developed."
Leduc Montgomery responded by saying Upthegrove could reconfigure the Dabbler sale, among other challenged timber harvests that DNR admits to containing structurally complex forest.
The lawsuit against the Dabbler sale was filed on Dec. 23. The notice of legal appeal was served to DNR on Dec. 30, before Upthegrove took office. Under the statute, DNR is required to provide administrative record — documents about the sale from DNR and its board — within 30 days of the lawsuit being filed. As of Friday, Jan. 31, Leduc Montgomery said her office has not received the administrative record for the sale and that DNR is violating its statutory obligations.
Without DNR’s administrative record, Leduc Montgomery said her office is unable to file its opening brief for the court to begin deciding the case, adding that administrative record is evidence for the case. She said that DNR has done this in previous instances, which has led to moot cases in some circumstances where DNR either revokes an auction of timber land or the timber goes to harvest before a decision is made.
“It’s a bad-faith participation in the legal process, and they’re engaging in a way that’s trying to intentionally thwart the public’s ability to hold the government accountable under the law, which is not a good look for the agency or for the new commissioner,” she said. “I mean, the commissioner of public lands, Dave Upthegrove, who’s in office now, campaigned on saving these very structurally complex forests, these legacy forests.”
Leduc Montgomery added that DNR can very easily swap out the legacy forest acreage for other land that is not structurally complex as a way to better practice timber harvesting and fund the beneficiaries.