Study: Skyline Forest at risk

WASHINGTON — Preserving Skyline Forest would reduce fire danger and save important mule deer habitat, which would likely vanish if the land remained in private hands, a recent U.S. Forest Service study concluded.

The agency’s Pacific Northwest Research Station used computer models to predict future development patterns and forest growth under public and private ownership. It performed the study on behalf of the Oregon Department of Forestry, which released the document to The Bulletin on Monday. The Deschutes Land Trust is in the planning stages to buy the property from Fidelity National Timber Resources. That company has five years to sell the land, under a state law passed this year, in exchange for the right to develop a small portion of the property.

The results of the Forest Service study largely echoed arguments made by the land trust and other supporters of a proposal to turn the 30,000-acre parcel into a community forest, managed for sustainable logging and recreation.

“Without some type of intervention as the Deschutes Land Trust is proposing, I think it seems likely that those lands would move out of the working forest category and would experience a level of development that would not be in the best interests of everybody,” said Doug Decker, state forest project leader for the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Deschutes Land Trust Conservation Director Brad Nye said he generally agreed with the study’s conclusions, especially the risks of development if the land isn’t preserved.

“That’s what we’re trying to prevent with that property, is having it broken up in a bunch of different pieces,” Nye said.

Skyline, also known as the Bull Springs Tree Farm, extends from a few miles west of Bend northwest to a few miles south of Sisters.

To Bend residents, the forest is the expanse of greenery lying beneath the Three Sisters peaks. It was previously part of Crown Pacific’s timber holdings, and in terms of acreage, it’s 50 percent larger than the city of Bend.

Preserving the bulk of the forest as a nonprofit, while managing it for timber, resources and environmental purposes, has been discussed for years.

Fidelity National Timber reached a deal with environmentalists this spring to build as many as 282 dwellings in the northern part of the forest, in exchange for selling the forest to the land trust. The agreement, which passed the Oregon Legislature this year, requires Fidelity to sell most of the Skyline Forest to the Deschutes Land Trust. It also would have to sell another 35,000 acres to a land trust or a public agency such as the Oregon Department of Forestry. That land is located in southern Deschutes County and northern Klamath County.

If it remains in private hands, Forest Service researchers predict Skyline will be dotted with houses by 2050. The eastern edge would be more heavily populated, with some parts becoming as dense as the area north of Tumalo is now.

Although the land is zoned for forest use, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t eventually be developed, said Miles Hemstrom, a research ecologist for the Forest Service who co-authored the study. The agency used past development trends in similar areas to produce its predictions, he said.

“Land in any zoning can be developed because there are always local variances,” Hemstrom said. “There’s some chance someone will go in and get county commissioners to allow a variance.”

If the land is developed into lots, private landowners are less likely than a logging operation or community forest to thin their property. That increases the chances of dangerous wildfire substantially, the study concluded.

“Without treatment, forests in developed areas will likely become mostly dense, with abundant small trees and few openings,” the study says. “These intermingled areas of high fuels could easily increase rates of wildfire and insect loss to the remaining old ponderosa pine forests by providing fire travel corridors and hot spots for insect outbreaks.”

The study also found that the land provides important winter habitat for mule deer, which could be harmed by development. That’s an area that needs more study, though, Hemstrom said. The Forest Service hopes to examine how the deer respond to development in another study, hopefully beginning this fall, he said.

The researchers also concluded that the land will only support 100 to 200 acres of sustainable logging each year, because the area has already been logged in many places. And it could be 60 years before it hits its maximum logging potential. They used a survey of the land’s vegetation, along with an established model for estimating tree growth.

The harvest would consist of “mostly Douglas fir and white fir thinned from around large ponderosa pine,” the study said.

The land trust hasn’t updated its estimates of the harvest, but plans to start that work soon, Nye said.

“We’ll be out on the property later this week to get a sense of what’s going on and start running those numbers,” he said.

The low harvest potential might be a problem for the land trust, which has planned to sell bonds to help buy the land, and then use logging revenues to pay off the bonds.

But Nye said he wants to see more detailed studies of the forest’s harvest potential before drawing conclusions.

“I would caution against putting too much on it as far as a detailed specific analysis of what will happen to that property,” Nye said.

Keith Chu can be reached at 202-662-7456 or at kchu@bendbulletin.com.