QuickTake:

The American Forest Resource Council and the Association of O&C Counties say rural communities depend on a decade-old resource management plan for 1.3 million acres in Oregon — that the lawsuit threatens to upend.

A timber industry trade group is trying to fend off a lawsuit that would upend a 2016 Bureau of Land Management plan.

The American Forest Resource Council and the Association of O&C Counties filed a motion Friday, Sept. 18, to intervene in the federal lawsuit, which was filed in June by Cascadia Wildlands, a Eugene-based nonprofit conservation advocacy group.

In their motion, the two organizations say the lawsuit against the BLM, if successful, would disrupt ongoing timber and natural resource work on 1.3 million acres in Oregon.

The conservation group’s lawsuit seeks to overturn the BLM’s Aloha Trout Forest Management Project, which authorizes timber harvesting. The lawsuit alleges the federal plan skirted a requirement that it be submitted to Congress for approval and is invalid without that approval.

The Aloha Trout Forest Management Project is in Marion County and is part of a larger plan the lawsuit targets: the 2016 Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan.

That plan covers about 1.3 million acres of BLM-administered land in western Oregon, including Lane County. The Cascadia lawsuit alleges the last valid plan was adopted in 1994.

The American Forest Resource Council is a timber industry group. The Association of O&C Counties represents western Oregon counties that include 2.1 million acres of forest that are part of the Oregon and California Revested Lands, often called the O&C lands.

The federal government gives counties, including Lane County, a portion of revenue from timber sales on those lands.

The two groups say the lawsuit, if successful, would halt or slow commercial timber harvests and affect fuel treatments, trail improvements and wildlife habitat work. That work is required by the current BLM plan, their motion alleges.

The two groups are also seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the case is barred by the statute of limitations.

“For 10 years, BLM has planned projects, sold timber and carried out forest management under this plan,” Travis Joseph, president and CEO of the American Forest Resource Council, said in a statement. “Throwing it out now would create enormous uncertainty across western Oregon and put years of planned and ongoing work at risk. Mills, workers, counties and rural communities have made decisions based on the expectation that these public lands will continue to be managed. We are intervening because they have a direct stake in the outcome.”

Doug Robertson, executive director of the Association of O&C Counties, said a return to the 1994 plan would be “an economic disaster for western Oregon counties and rural communities. AOCC is hopeful that the courts see (the) plaintiff’s lawsuit as political theater and that this case will be quickly dismissed.”

Nick Cady, legal director of Cascadia Wildlands, said the motion to intervene was expected. Such motions from those organizations usually don’t face an objection from his organization, given their role and standing to do so, he said.

“We welcome their thoughts even though we might disagree with them,” he said. 

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.