Critics: Monument plan would nix logging, grazing

Cattle and timber industry representatives say the proposed expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument will lead to lost grazing lands and timber production and injure the area’s economy.  In October, Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to expand the monument’s border by about 50,000 acres, much of which would involve Bureau of Land Management lands. The existing 62,000-acre monument in Southern Oregon was designated by then-president Bill Clinton in 2000.  A loss of cattle grazing in the area that abuts the Oregon-California state line would result in increased wildfire fodder in an already dry, hot and fire-prone area, the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association asserts.  Moreover, adjacent private landowners could lose access to their properties if roads are not maintained or gates become permanently locked, said Jerome Rosa, the OCA’s executive director.  e designation would be “potentially devastating” to the timber industry, taking “a lot of volume off the table,” said Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resource Council. Existing timber sales on the land “could be grandfathered in,” he said, “but we’ve seen with other monument proposals that timber sales that are grandfathered in don’t actually get implemented.”