HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommissioner Hilary Franz, Deputy Supervisor Angus Brodie, Board of Natural Resources o� COMi4rss Board of County Commissioners
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coG o,--t 1820 Jefferson Street
o al ti ` PO Box 1220
� Port Townsend, WA 98368
9s III NG,s.o Kate Dean,District 1 Heidi Eisenhour,District 2 Greg Brotherton,District 3
April 4, 2022
To: Commissioner Hilary Franz
Deputy Supervisor Angus Brodie
Board of Natural Resources
From:Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners
RE: Beaver Valley Sorts timber harvest
Commissioner, Mr. Brodie and Board Members,
The Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners(BOCC)appreciates your partnership in managing
Washington State's resource lands for the many benefits they convey, and we recognize the
complexity that presents in your policy-and decision-making.
We are writing to ask you to not approve and defer the Beaver Valley Sorts timber sale before the Board
on Tuesday,April 5, 2022. We ask this given the other, important work that DNR is engaged in
which will ultimately inform this sale and others like it in the future. Specifically, we would like to
delay this sale for the following reasons:
• Jefferson County highly values the myriad ecosystem functions that our forests serve, especially carbon
sequestration as we see the impacts of climate change accelerating. We implore DNR and the Board of
Natural Resources to finalize a calculation of sequestered and emitted carbon to use in analysis of all
future timber sales and harvests.
• The Trust Land Transfer proviso work group is currently working to provide pathways for communities
like ours to identify the trust lands most suitable for harvest and those better suited to conservation.
We would like to see the outcomes of their work before any harvest commences on diverse, mature
forests such those in the Beaver Valley Sorts units.
While these are specific concerns related to the Beaver Valley Sorts timber sale,they are indicative of
broader, structural and existential concerns that we have about how our State's trust lands are held
and managed. Simply put,funding schools, libraries,emergency services and other essential
services with industrial forest practices is outdated and needs to be reconsidered.
We recognize forestry as an important economic and cultural driver in the state of Washington, but see
enormous opportunity for innovation in how state-owned lands are managed. Whether it is variable
retention harvest,or the selling of carbon credits, or development of specialty forestry products,
alternatives to clear-cutting exist. Jefferson County will gladly partner with DNR in exploring new
and alternative forest practices that don't pit funding of essential services with protecting our
environment. That is a zero-sum game in which nobody wins.
Thank you for your consideration of our request and we welcome ongoing dialogue abo t the future of DNR
forests in Jefferson County.
Board of Count Commissionerst.(/ ���h
Kate Dean 7-- I/4\k,
enhour, Chair reg Brotherton
District 1 District 2 District 3
Phone (360) 385-9100 Fax (360) 385-9382 jeffbocc@cojefferson.wa.us