Board study session reviews Eastside forest management, funding and operational trade-offs

Dave Upthegrove, state lands commissioner and chair of the Board of Natural Resources, opened a May 12 special study session on Eastside forest management and the Forest Health Revolving Account, saying the meeting would be an informational briefing and that the board would not take action or hear public comment.

Casey Hanel, acting deputy supervisor for State Uplands, framed the session as part of an Environmental Impact Statement and alternatives-development process for the East Side sustainable harvest calculation, telling members the EIS will present baseline conditions, a set of alternatives and an analysis of environmental impacts so the board can compare management options.

The department’s technical staff explained why active management is necessary on many Eastern Washington stands. "You cannot talk about the East Side without talking about fire," Cameron Crump, forest resources division manager, said while describing the region's diverse fire regimes and moisture-limited ecology. Staff emphasized that past fire exclusion and earlier management practices have left many dry forest types overstocked and more vulnerable to high-severity fire, insect outbreaks and drought-related mortality.

Sam Steinshauer, forest health program manager, walked the board through stand-level examples that illustrate trade-offs among density management, species composition and fuels work. He described variable-retention harvests, scarification to encourage natural regeneration and the use of whole-tree yarding or pile-and-burn depending on proximity to markets and bioenergy infrastructure. On post-treatment outcomes he said treating earlier can give firefighters more options: "When you run into management, almost any kind of management, it's better than no management at all," Steinshauer said.

Staff reviewed the legislative and policy framework that supports the department’s work. Presenters cited several enacted bills and internal policies that direct forest health priorities for Eastern Washington and for state trust lands specifically, and they explained the Forest Health Revolving Account (internal code '21q') as a tool to fund treatments on marginal stands. "We're able to retain receipts and reinvest back into Eastern Washington," Steinshauer said, and staff said that retention helps fund treatments that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.

Board members asked about scale and finances. Steinshauer estimated "a little over $100,000,000" in management costs since 2018 and described a rough internal split in early account use: about 80% reinvested in management and about 20% used for staff and some distributions. He and other staff said exact accounting and more detailed numbers can be provided to the board in follow-up materials.

Members also pressed staff on operational constraints that affect how and where treatments can occur. Presenters repeatedly pointed to haul distance and mill location as determining whether a sale is economically positive; Brett Walker, assistant region manager for Northeast State Lands, noted that long hauls can negate revenue and that market location matters for sale viability. Staff said they do not currently have a dataset to model how DNR volumes alone affect regional mill sustainability and suggested that would be a reasonable future analysis tied to the sustainable harvest calculation process.

On prescribed fire, Steinshauer and others said use declined after smoke-management rules in the 1990s but is expanding again: staff cited recent prescribed fire activity (including a roughly 500-acre burn in Okanogan) and said program growth is ongoing but constrained by funding, staffing and liability considerations.

Presenters highlighted examples in the Southeast and Northeast regions—timber sale sizes and returns, insect outbreaks such as tussock moth pockets, blue heron rookery protections discovered during pre-harvest inspections, and specific projects (including the Walker fire area and a Lummis landscape plan example) that show how treatments influence fire outcomes and habitat.

Casey Hanel closed by identifying next steps: staff will use feedback from this session to develop more structured alternatives for the EIS; the board will resume alternatives-development discussion on June 11 (1–3 p.m.) and consider financial analysis and metrics on July 23, with dates subject to change. Chair Upthegrove adjourned the meeting.

The session was informational; no motions or votes were taken.