As more states tap into the federal revenue stream that began as a safety net for Northwest states hit hard by logging restrictions in the 1990s, funding is becoming more and more diluted and is set to expire in 2012.
Clallam and Jefferson county officials don’t mind sharing the shrinking funds from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.
They’re just happy the dollars are still there. Both counties will receive at least $1 million in funds in 2010.
The spreading of the funds “did, in fact, reduce our Secure Rural Schools financing a little bit, but the important thing is at least it reauthorized it,” said Philip Morley, Jefferson County administrator.
“I think they had to dilute it,” said Clallam County Administrator Jim Jones, referring to Congress.
“I’m grateful we have access to any.”
Unless Congress reauthorizes the law, Secure Rural Schools dollars will fall to zero in a termination — or sunset of the law — in 2012.
Secure Rural Schools started out as compensation for timber harvest restrictions that set off a political firestorm in the early 1990s to protect the endangered northern spotted owl.
Since becoming law in 2000, the program has distributed more than $3 billion to 700 counties in 41 states with national forests, and helped fund everything from schools to libraries to jails.
“For us, the biggest issue is it’s set to sunset after 2011,” Morley said.
Most of the Secure Rural Schools funding on the North Olympic Peninsula goes to road departments, often matched by state grants at a 2-1 ratio.
The loss of $1 million in Secure Rural Schools funding is akin to losing $3 million for roads, Morley said.
Five Western states — Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho and Montana — received more than80 percent of the total timber payments from 2000 to 2007.
Last year, a four-year renewal of the law authorized an additional $1.6 billion through 2011 and shifted substantial sums to states where the spotted owl never flew.
The spotted owl was declared a threatened species in 1990. Heavy logging in old-growth forests was blamed for its demise.
The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan implemented a system of protections for old-growth forests. It allowed forests to be thinned but not cut down.
Even with habitat protections in place, spotted owl populations have declined about 4 percent each year in a range that stretches from British Columbia to Northern California.
Wildlife biologists say the barred owl, a larger and more aggressive relative of the spotted owl, has contributed to the decline of the species.
Political necessity
Meanwhile, in order to renew the Secure Rural Schools fund, federal lawmakers “had to give more of it to other states in order for us to get any,” Jones said.
Next year, Jefferson County will spend $1.04 million of its $1.4 million allocation from Secure Rural Schools funding on its roads department.
Road revenue in Jefferson County is projected to drop to $709,000 in 2011 before it sunsets to zero in 2012.
Secure Rural Schools allocations to the Clallam County road fund will drop from $930,000 this year to $732,000 in 2010 and $501,000 in 2011.
“It has impacted us, and will be more of an impact over the next two years,” Clallam County Public Works Director Craig Jacobs said.
John Calhoun, Port of Port Angeles commissioner who was re-elected on Nov. 3, said it’s been a long tradition for the federal government to compensate states and counties that were impacted by timber harvesting restrictions.
‘Make it more difficult’
He said the ratcheting down of the Secure Rural Schools funds will “make it more difficult for counties impacted by federal policies on land and timber.”
“It’s not a good thing,” Calhoun said.
Jones said the Secure Rural Schools fund was “critically important for the first eight years of the program.”
“The county used to get a million-three, a million-four in actual-timber revenue,” Jones said.
“Now we’re lucky to get $300,000 or $400,000 a year.”
Calhoun predicts that the timber industry on the North Olympic Peninsula will make a comeback next year.
“We think 2010 will be better than 2009, which was a disaster,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun and others on the Peninsula have been investigating the use of forest biofuels. He said the worst-case scenario would be converting timberlands into development or abandoning them.
“I think that’s really the biggest long-term problem we have,” he said.
Morley won’t predict whether Congress will renew the Secure Rural Schools fund.
“It’s certainly too early to tell,” he said.
If the funds are not reauthorized, Morley said, the impacts to the Peninsula would be “significant.”
“We have based our programs and activities on that revenue,” Jacobs said,
“To lose it is going to be tough.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
