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Klamath Tribes acquire the Crater Lake Mill site

 
Indian Country Today
Klamath, Oregon (ICC) 11-08

The Klamath Tribes announced recently that they have acquired a 108 acre site known as the Crater Lake Mill Site located on Highway 97 about twenty-five miles north of Chiloquin. The property was purchased from a private owner.

Tribal Chairman Joe Kirk said the Mill Site has been on the tribes’ radar screen for many years and the tribes were delighted when it became available. “This private land was part of the tribes’ former reservation before we were terminated in 1956 by the federal government. We will create a Green Enterprise Park at this location. The park will focus on the development of forest-based enterprises that can utilize small diameter trees and other by-products of wildfire hazard reduction treatments and other forest restoration activities. Enterprises being evaluated for the site include a bundled fire wood business, the manufacturing of wood chips, small diameter poles and posts, juniper products and green houses.”

It will represent the first new wood utilization facility to be established in the northern Basin in over a decade.

With the increasing costs of transportation, developing processing facilities in the north end of Klamath County will provide both public and private forest land owners with a new option for utilizing forest products. This will in turn enable landowners to implement more forestry treatments critical to addressing the increasing threats of wildfire and insect infestations.

As a July 23rd Hearld and News article noted, over 330,000 acres in the Bly and Paisley Ranger Districts of the Winema-Fremont National Forests are experiencing large scale tree death due to an infestation of mountain pine bark beetles. A smaller but still worrisome beetle outbreak is also taking place northwest of Klamath Falls on the Prospect District of the Rogue River National Forest. Many foresters and forest scientists fear that the combined impacts of drought and reduced forest treatments are creating conditions that could result in huge die-offs of forests in the Klamath Basin.

By developing a wood utilization facility in the northern Basin, the Klamath Tribe is taking the next step in implementing the forest restoration plan it developed with some of the Northwest’s leading forest ecologists including Dr. Jerry Franklin at University of Washington’s School of Forestry, and Dr. Norm Johnson from Oregon State University.

The centerpiece of the tribes’ Green Energy Park will be a biomass facility that will convert woody material created from forest restoration activities such as thinning and fuels reduction treatments on public and private forests in the area. When the biomass facility is built out completely it will produce up to eight megawatts of electricity for local consumption. Chairman Kirk said that the tribes, by putting the new source of energy on the electrical grid, will help compensate for some loss of local energy production resulting from the contemplated decommissioning of the four dams on the Klamath River.

Jeff Mitchell, Klamath tribal council member and Biomass Committee Chair, pointed out that these enterprises will not only create badly needed tribal employment opportunities,  but the revenues will help cover the costs of undertaking the restoration work on the tribes’ own forest lands. He also indicated that the tribes hope others will follow their lead. He said, “We hope that the presence of our Green Enterprise Park will encourage the Forest Service and private forest owners to put a much higher priority on fuels reduction work and to recognize the importance of the woody material as a ready source of clean renewable energy.

Mitchell concluded by describing the wider implications of the Klamath Tribes’ new Green Enterprise Park: “Fuels reduction and the removal and transformation of the woody material are essential to maintaining healthy forests today. These activities will reduce the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires, decrease the invasion of non-indigenous species, and increase our forests’ resilience and resistance to pine bark beetle and other forms of infestation. Fixing our forests will improve conditions of our watershed, bring back our elk and deer by restoring wildlife habitat, and help prepare the Klamath Basin to deal with the adverse effects of climate change. The development of the Green Enterprise Park is a big step for the tribes and a very important step for people throughout the Klamath Basin.”

The newly acquired site already has much of the essential physical improvements and infrastructure to support the activities planned for the Green Enterprise Park. The site has rail and highway access, water and electricity, cement slabs, several industrial buildings, truck scales and other amenities.

Former owner of the Crater Mill Site, Keith Wright, applauded the tribes for their recent purchase and for taking a bold step in rebuilding their tribes’ economy around forest restoration and forest product development. “They were in this business for decades before they were terminated in the 1950s. Now, it is about time that they are back fully engaged as stewards of the environment.”

 

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