Good Neighbor Authority Timber Sale, June 21

The Oregon Department of Forestry and the USDA Forest Service jointly announced the award of the first timber sale contract under the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA). The sale is part of the Paddock Butte GNA restoration project on the Fremont-Winema National Forest and represents the first ODF-administered timber sale under the GNA. The Paddock Butte timber sale was awarded to Ore-Cal Land Development, LLC of Klamath Falls, and the contract signed on June 6. Governor Kate Brown and Pacific Northwest Regional Forester Jim Peña signed a Master Agreement in March 2016 to execute the Good Neighbor Agreement in Oregon. Under GNA, which was authorized by Congress in the 2014 Farm Bill, state agencies work in partnership with the USDA Forest Service to implement restoration projects on federal lands. Chad Davis, Director of the ODF Partnership & Planning Program, said that GNA is an integral component of the department’s Federal Forest Restoration Program, first initiated by the state legislature in 2013. “GNA allows us to significantly ramp up our partnership with the U.S. Forest Service to increase the pace, scale and quality of restoration. The Paddock Butte project is a prime example of the work needed to improve forest health to increase the resiliency of our fire-prone forests to uncharacteristic wildfire and invasive species,” Davis said. The Paddock Butte timber sale is 637 acres of ponderosa pine on National Forest System lands in Klamath County on the Bly Ranger District and within the ODF Klamath-Lake District.  The sale area is surrounded on three sides by private land and is located north of Gerber Reservoir. The Paddock Butte GNA project is more than a timber sale. It permits activities to treat insect and disease-infected trees, reduce hazardous fuels, and other treatments to restore or improve forest, rangeland and watershed health, including wildlife habitat. “Paddock Butte embodies the spirit of GNA,” said USDA Forest Service Lakeview and Bly District Ranger Mike Ramsey. “It’s an area where restoration and fuel reduction work is already occurring on private and other government lands. If the Forest Service land was left untreated, that has the potential to intensify the effects of a wildfire and undermine all the valuable restoration work being done by other landowners.” Typically timber revenues on federal lands would return to the federal agency.  A benefit to GNA is that ODF can administer the timber sale and use the resulting funds to recover their administrative costs and fund additional restoration activities, including invasive weed treatments and juniper removal. Public in the area may see increased traffic in the area during the timber harvest and subsequent fuel reduction, including the application of prescribed fire, and other restoration treatments. The Paddock Butte sale and restoration project was identified as a high priority treatment area by the Klamath-Lake Forest Health Partnership, the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Klamath-Lake District, and the Fremont-Winema National Forest. For more information on the Paddock Butte project or the Fremont-Winema National Forest, please visit www.fs.usda.gov/fremont-winema, follow the forest on Twitter @FremontWinemaNF or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/R6FWNF. For more information on the Oregon Department of Forestry: www.oregon.gov/ODF/pages/index.aspx, on Twitter via @ORDeptForestry or on Facebook via @oregondepartmentofforestry.