FORKS — U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer this week begins a series of public meetings featuring the Olympic Peninsula Forest Collaborative, an amalgam of timber-related industry and conservation groups and North Olympic Peninsula community leaders.
The first of five get-togethers that will focus on Olympic National Forest will be at 11 a.m. Friday at the Olympic Natural Resources Center, 1455 S. Forks Ave., Forks, according to a news release issued Monday by Kilmer’s office.
Rod Fleck, the Forks planner-city attorney who received official notice of the meeting Wednesday, said Monday the session with Kilmer was scheduled to end at 12:30 p.m. Friday.
Kilmer, a Port Angeles native, represents the 6th Congressional District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Kilmer spokesman Jason Phelps said Monday that dates have not yet been set for four more meetings in 2016 in Clallam, Jefferson, Mason and Grays Harbor counties.
“As we get closer, we’ll be making announcements about those,” he said.
Kilmer kicked off the Collaborative on May 8 at a public meeting at Port Angeles City Hall, when his office called the group the Olympic Peninsula Collaborative.
At that meeting, Kilmer said environmental and logging interests had agreed that “we can responsibly increase harvest levels in a way that would benefit our forests as well as build consensus around specific projects and outcomes.”
The group’s goal is to “bring together stakeholders from the environmental community, the timber industry, and representatives from federal and local government around shared goals of increasing timber harvest from the Olympic National Forest while benefitting the environmental quality of our forests and watersheds,” according to its website, www.olympicforestcollaborative.org.
Fleck said he is looking forward to hearing more at Friday’s meeting about how the collaborative will work with communities affected by activities of the U.S. Forest Service, which manages Olympic National Forest.
Forks falls in that category.
“Those communities have not been represented” on the collaborative, Fleck said.
“We have a lot in common with [the timber] industry, but communities, environmental groups and the industry all have a role to play in that discussion.”
Participants in the collaborative include American Forest Resource Council, American Whitewater, Cosmo Specialty Fibers, Interfor, Merrill & Ring, the Mountaineers, Murphy Co., Olympic Park Associates, Olympic Forest Coalition, Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society, Pew Charitable Trusts, Sierra Pacific Industries, Washington Wild and the Wild Olympics Campaign.
Kilmer, first elected in 2012, has been working on bringing together timber and environmental groups “since day one,” Phelps said.
“This is the next phase of it, getting all sides out of the gate and rolling it out to the public and getting their feedback,” Phelps said.
Phelps noted that Kilmer and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack met Oct. 14 in Aberdeen.
The Forest Service falls under the purview of the Department of Agriculture.
At that meeting, Vilsack spoke of “a shared interest and shared value” between economic and environmental interests, according to The (Aberdeen) Daily World.
“You’ve got competing interests that have in the past . . . basically stymied each other,” Vilsack said.
A proposed pilot project in Olympic National Forest was announced at the meeting that will feature forest-restoration silviculture — the practice of controlling and cultivating tree growth — in a way that benefits the ecosystem and generates more timber harvest, according to Monday’s news release.
Kilmer’s visit with Vilsack built on the collaborative’s work, Phelps said.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
