Rep. Chris Corry: A Price Too High: Washington’s forests, schools, and jobs hang in the balance
Washington’s forests are supposed to work for the people. For more than a century, our state’s trust lands have generated revenue for schools, counties, and vital local services through sustainable timber harvests. That balance – harvest coupled with replanting and responsible stewardship – has supported both healthy forests and healthy communities.
But Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove’s recent order to pull 77,000 acres of older timber permanently out of production turns that balance on its head, replacing tested forest practices and pragmatism with irrational ideology, and leaving taxpayers, schoolchildren, and rural economies to bear the cost. In essence, less timber sold means fewer dollars for schools, counties, and fire districts that depend on this revenue.
The School Funding Squeeze
The harm is not abstract. Take the Eatonville School District. As previously reported in the media, Eatonville voters recently passed a bond to build new school facilities, with the understanding that timber revenues would cover interest payments. However, once sales were halted, the district’s financing plan was thrown into chaos. Now, a community and school district that did the hard work of passing a bond and planning responsibly may find itself holding the bag with little options left.
And Eatonville isn’t alone. School districts across the state count on these revenues to keep classrooms running, pay down debts, and maintain facilities. County governments use the money for libraries, hospitals, and emergency services. In rural communities where every dollar counts and every job celebrated, shutting off timber sales isn’t just a policy choice – it’s a direct hit to children, teachers, taxpayers, and the local economy.
Wildfire and the Cost of Neglect
Upthegrove frames his plan as conservation, but it ignores a hard truth: failing to actively manage our forests only increases the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Decades of neglect have left Washington with overstocked stands, deadfall piling on the forest floor, and a tinderbox environment. When lightning strikes or sparks fly, unmanaged “protected” forests can turn into firestorms that wipe out both habitat and communities. Continually blaming climate change – and climate change ONLY – for wildfires when the state has so poorly managed its own trust lands is an attempt to distract from policy failures.
Sustainable logging is not the enemy of conservation – it is one of the tools that keeps forests resilient. Thinning older stands, harvesting mature trees, and creating strategic firebreaks in the forest, while replanting younger, healthier growth reduces fire danger while providing the lumber and revenue our communities need. By sidelining timber management in favor of sweeping set-asides, Upthegrove is increasing the threat of wildfire at the same time he’s draining funding from the very schools and services that respond when disaster strikes. This is reckless and dangerous.
Ideology vs. Responsibility
At its core, this new policy is about politics and ideology, not sound land management. Upthegrove campaigned on a promise to stop timber harvests in older forests, and now he’s expanding that directive to make good. As a result, school children, communities, and local government services will bear the costs.
Let’s be clear: Ballot-box land policy is no substitute for responsible stewardship. Making sweeping changes to forest management because it polls well or pleases a narrow slice of voters undermines the very trust that Upthegrove is supposed to uphold. Real conservation requires hard decisions and trade-offs, long-term planning, and science-based management – not symbolic gestures and political promises.
A Better Way Forward
Conservation is not inherently incompatible with prosperity. Protecting certain stands of old-growth forests, restoring critical habitat, and advancing reforestation all have their place. But those goals must be balanced against the clear obligation to provide revenue for schools, counties, and communities. Ultimately, the state Department of Natural Resources should focus on responsible timber harvests that both sustain rural jobs and keep forests healthy.
Washington’s children, schools, and local governments should not pay the price for ideology. Forest management belongs in the realm of science, stewardship, and fiscal responsibility – not in the echo chamber of one-party policy and politics. If we continue down Upthegrove’s path, we will end up with poorer schools, weaker communities, and more dangerous forests.
Washington’s trust lands were meant to serve the people, not the political interests of our land’s commissioner. It’s time we demand they do exactly that.
(Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, is the Deputy Minority Leader and serves on the House Appropriations Committee.)
