Gov. Kate Brown traveled Friday to Douglas County to mark a symbolic end to the contentious debate over the Elliott State Forest, even as a timber company that had hoped to buy the forest vows to fight the state in court.
Brown, joined by Treasurer Tobias Read, a fellow Democrat, made the trip to celebrate the state's decision to keep the forest in public lands. It did so by using $100 million in state debt to buy a portion of the forest that straddles parts of Douglas and Coos counties.
"Oregonians overwhelmingly made it clear that the Elliott's lands should remain in public hands," Brown said in a statement. "Now more than ever, it's imperative that we not scale back any of Oregon's public lands or national monuments."
The Elliott is constitutionally required to make money for the Common School Fund, an account that distributes millions to K-12 education across the state. The fund, currently valued at $1.5 billion, delivered about $136.6 million to schools in the 2015-17 biennium.
But officials began talk of selling the forest soon after timber sales plunged in 2012 amid lawsuits over the presence of threatened species. In February, the state appeared close to accepting a $221 million offer from Lone Rock Timber Partners but reversed course in May.
Environmental, hunting and conservation groups battled the proposed sale, and ultimately the State Land Board – comprising Brown, Wheeler and Secretary of State Dennis Richardson -- unanimously agreed on a plan to remove much of the forest's most valuable environmental and riparian zones from the mandate to produce money from timber harvests.
The forest is known to be home to threatened and endangered species such as the marbled murrelet, northern spotted owl, and coastal Coho salmon.
Oregon lawmakers also approved a bill, which Brown subsequently signed, to set up a process so the state could transfer natural resource-based land that is not producing revenue for the Common School Fund to another state agency. That trust lands transfer process would protect public lands from being privatized. It mimics a policy that has been in place in Washington for decades.
Now, Lone Rock Timber Partners is suing the state for "unilaterally and wrongfully" terminating an agreement to sell off the land. The Roseburg company was the lone bidder for the forest.
The Oregon School Boards Association, a statewide nonprofit, had also challenged the state's decision to issue bonds to buy a swath of the forest. The education association said the state had an obligation to make the Common School Fund whole.
In late April, the association threatened to sue the state if it did not produce a deal that resulted in $220.8 million being deposited into the Common School Fund. A previous state appraisal valued the forest land at nearly one-quarter-of-a-billion dollars.
Asked Friday, whether it was still planning to pursue a lawsuit, the association said it was still weighing its options and hadn't decided on its legal options.
-- Andrew Theen
atheen@oregonian.com
503-294-4026
@andrewtheen