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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Timber

Ashland won't join watershed lawsuit

ASHLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The Ashland City Council will not join the U.S. Forest Service as a defendant in a lawsuit over thinning in the Ashland watershed. Councilwoman Kate Jackson says the thinning project is essential to the health of the watershed, but the city's legal department ...

Sunday, March 21, 2010 3:09 PM

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EcoTrust sells its first carbon credits

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A for-profit subsidiary of Portland-based EcoTrust has sold its first carbon credits from Washington forest land it owns. The deal puts more than 3,000 acres on Washington Olympic Peninsula into the market for credits designed to offset business and government ...

Sunday, March 21, 2010 9:28 AM

Company claims EPA designation devalues land

A California timber company has asked a federal appellate court for clearance to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a regulation that allegedly diminished the value of its property. The Barnum Timber Co. filed suit against the EPA in 2008 because a stream along the firm's p ...

Saturday, March 20, 2010 10:08 AM

Need for wood highlights US insect problems

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Months of heavy rains throughout the South are forcing International Paper Co. to look beyond its usual suppliers for wood for its central South Carolina mill and turn to places that are known to have tree-destroying gypsy moths. The extensive steps federal regulato ...

Friday, March 19, 2010 7:38 AM

Owl key to thinning fight

The U.S. Forest Service has asked a federal appellate court to reverse an injunction against thinning in Oregon's Deschutes National Forest. The agency claimed the thinning project, which would permit logging in some mature stands, is necessary to protect the forest from catastrophic fire ...

Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:08 AM

Lawmakers examine trends in forest health

OLYMPIA -- Washington's legislators this session dealt with a variety of bills that addressed timberland, including issues such as buffers, harvesting, sales, conservation and forest fires. To look ahead to future issues, the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation and ...

Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:08 AM

Texan promotes wood waste for power

Specialized trailers would dry biomass so it burns efficiently FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Randy Hill lives amid the fossil fuels of America, a place where natural gas and crude oil made millionaires and the landscape is dotted with pump jacks. But Hill, who lives outside Abilene in West Tex ...

Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:08 AM

Paper maker to expand biomass operation

A Washington-based paper company is laying the groundwork to build a 65-megawatt, wood-fueled biomass plant, which would be the largest in the Pacific Northwest. Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging Inc. has filed a permit request with the Washington Department of Commerce. The company plans to h ...

Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:08 AM

Administration mulls pilot logging project

DEER LODGE, Mont. (AP) -- The Obama administration could support the logging mandate proposed in U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's forest bill as a pilot project, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. Speaking March 6 in Deer Lodge, Vilsack said the agency would consider Tester's bill as a trial ru ...

Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:08 AM

Log export plan concerns Port of Astoria tenants

ASTORIA, Ore. (AP) -- Port of Astoria officials have started lease negotiations with a Bremerton, Wash.-company that wants to use 16 acres of the port's central waterfront to ship logs to Asia. Port leaders say the deal could boost the agency's revenue by almost 25 percent. The ...

Saturday, March 13, 2010 9:10 AM

Appeals court hears arguments on forest roads rule

DENVER (AP) -- Lawyers for the state of Wyoming and the Colorado Mining Association say a 2001 federal rule banning construction of new roads on National Forest land violates the law. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver heard oral arguments Wednesday in Wyoming's lawsuit challen ...

Friday, March 12, 2010 1:08 PM

Agent takes forestry to lofty heights

There's a lot more to Mike Bondi than what appears on his orange-and-black business card. In addition to being an Oregon State University forestry and Christmas tree extension agent and the staff chair for OSU's Clackamas County Extension office, the 58-year-old Minnesota native has playe ...

Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:08 AM

Wyo. regional forester rejects big box store ban

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) -- Regional Forester Harv Forsgren has rejected a proposal from a conservation group that would have prevented construction of a large store on federal land near Jackson. U.S. Forest Service officials began working on a plan to sell agency property in Jackson years ...

Saturday, March 06, 2010 8:49 AM

New regional forester discusses agency challenges

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) -- The new forester for the U.S. Forest Service's northern region says the agency is facing several challenges, including beetle-killed pine trees and snow-free watersheds. Leslie Weldon was named to succeed Thomas Tidwell in the post last year, overseeing 15 national fo ...

Thursday, March 04, 2010 11:08 AM

Drug gangs taking over US public lands

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. (AP) -- Not far from Yosemite's waterfalls and in the middle of California's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them. Pot has been gr ...

Wednesday, March 03, 2010 7:49 AM

Researchers launch acoustic offensive

Bark beetles live in a dark and smelly environment, so entomology professor Rich Hofstetter figured they must communicate by sound. If he could disrupt how they communicate, he could disrupt their lives. Barely a quarter-of-an-inch long, bark beetles mass by the thousands to tunnel throug ...