Forest Service Sale Near Sunriver Sparks Complaints

ENVIRONMENT 

By Ethan Lindsey

Sunriver, OR  November 14, 2007 4:24 p.m.

Three pieces of national forest land are being sold to the highest bidder in central Oregon this month. The forest service argues that its part of a local move to secure office space for its employees. But environmentalists see the sale as part of a larger push by the Bush Administration to privatize the national forests. Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

About 10 miles south of Bend sits Sunriver. Many people consider it to be Oregon's first destination resort.

Developed in 1969, Sunriver was built on an old Army base in the middle of the Deschutes National Forest.

The community is now home to more than 1500 residents. And it's one of the region's biggest economic drivers and property owners.

In fact, it's so successful, the owners of the development have been able to buy much of the surrounding land. Enough  to have built two additional golf course resorts.

And now, the resort has an opportunity to buy even more  land. The National Forest Service is auctioning off more than 300 acres of nearby forest.

During a similar sale last year, a subsidiary of Sunriver paid more than $7 million for 600 acres of forest.

Diana Hsieh is a real estate specialist for the forest service.

Diana Hsieh: “What happened last summer was people kept bidding, they kept upping each other. It was actually pretty crazy. Just a little story, I drove from Bend to John Day. And just in that 2 hour drive the price had gone up a million dollars on one of the parcels. I don't expect that to happen this summer.”

A representative for the resort wouldn't comment on whether or not the company will bid on the land.

Though, it should be noted these parcels aren't as close to the resort as the previous land was - and they are also smaller.

But the story isn't just a simple real estate deal. The Forest Service doesn't usually have the authority to sell land.

But, it was given the ability to sell a few parcels in central Oregon -- as part of a small bit of legislation passed by the Congress seven years ago.

Some of the land had lost its character, because it was too close to Bend's sprawling subdivisions and high speed traffic, Hsieh says.

But she adds that when that happens, the forest service doesn't usually take cash for the land.

Diana Hsieh: “Its actually somewhat sobering, and I had some personal thoughts myself. Because in an ideal situation, we would use the sale of this land and do a land exchange and get lands that we really wanted.”

The national forest service budget has been stretched for years.

And in central Oregon specifically, the agency has struggled financially because it has to pay rent on all its office space.

Hsieh says that the cash from the sale will allow the government to finally buy its own supervisor's offices. To her, that made it a good idea.

But it didn't convince Oregon's environmental community.

Tim Lillebo is the regional rep for Oregon Wild, a conservation group.

Tim Lillebo: “I think, with an edict from above, from the Bush Administration, they said sell off some lands, make some money, and then you can build a new supervisor's office. That's fine, they need a new supervisor's office, except selling off the public lands is not the way to do it.”

Lillebo says it's just another part of the Administration's long-time push to privatize the national forests.

Last year, the Administration proposed selling 300,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land.

The idea was to raise money to pay for the Secure Rural Schools Program. That's the program known around here as timber payments. It pays out millions of tax dollars to counties that used to be supported by the timber industry.

Lillebo says the land the Forest Service is getting rid of isn't even that scenic. He just doesn't want the Forest Service to get into the real estate business.

He says the old way,  trading unwanted pieces of forest land, worked fine. And he even sees a piece of land the Forest Service should try to get its hands on today.

Tim Lillebo: “In the middle of the Newberry Geothermal National Monument, there's a little piece of private land in there that they've proposed to build a destination resort. Why are we selling these lands at Sunriver, instead let's trade those lands. To me, it's a travesty that the Bush Administration keeps proposing to sell off our public lands.”

Environmental protests aren't the only bad news for the forest service land sale. The real estate slowdown and credit crunch also means the agency is not likely to see the million-dollar windfall it got last year.

Currently no one has bid on any of the three parcels.

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