In September 2004, the six-member state Board of Natural Resources unanimously approved a 10-year “Sustainable Harvest Calculation” Plan that will allow more timber to be logged from state forest land in Western Washington. More than three years in the making, the plan sets the regional timber-cut level at an average of 597 million board feet a year.

About 470 million board feet of timber was to be harvested from state lands in 2004, generating about $115 million for schools, county services, hospitals, libraries, etc. With the new plan, the state's logging revenue would increase to about $150 million per year.

Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages 2.1 million acres of forest trust land statewide, including about 1.4 million acres in Western Washington. DNR manages approximately 360,000 acres of public land in Clallam, Jefferson and Grays Harbor Counties on the Olympic Peninsula, known as the Olympic Region.

From 1994-2004, the annual timber harvest in the Olympic Region on state forestland was approximately 50 million board feet. While there will now be a thirty percent increase of timber harvesting on state land throughout Western Washington, there will be more than a 100 percent increase in the Olympic Region. The new decadal average for our area will be approximately 105 million board feet. The state typically logs about 80 million board feet of timber annually east of the Cascades.

The plan also allowed for some logging near streams, which have been mostly off-limits because of the potential harm to fish habitat.

In October 2004, the Washington Environmental Council, Audubon-Washington, Olympic Forest Coalition, and Northwest Ecosystem Alliance filed a lawsuit to prevent implementation of the Sustainable Harvest Calculation. These environmental organizations believe that there is inadequate protection given to riparian areas and Northern Spotted Owls, and that to meet these higher harvest levels violates the 1997 Habitat Conservation Plan. In March 2006, the parties to the lawsuit reached an agreement for harvest levels that they all can accept while trying to protect the Spotted Owl. Stay tuned.