Grayback Mountain, close to the site of the Pipe Fork land auction, August 2012.
Courtesy of Bureau Of Land Managment
The conservation group that had hoped to buy and preserve the property is now facing a much higher price at auction.
The 320-acre plot of land known as “Pipe Fork” was going to be purchased by the local conservation group Williams Community Forest Project, and subsequently sold to the federal Bureau of Land Management. The nonprofit was going to use a little over $2 million from The Conservation Fund, along with $300,000 of community-raised funds.
But Josephine County commissioners backed out of that deal in July, saying they didn’t get promises from the BLM that the land would be publicly accessible and wouldn’t be logged. The nonprofit says that a portion of the Pipe Fork land would have been incorporated into an adjacent Research Natural Area and conserved.
The pamphlet from the real estate company advertising the auction explicitly markets the land for logging.
“Acquisition of the 1,800-acre Josephine County Timberland Portfolio in either its entirety, or by individual tract or combination of tracts, is rare investment opportunity to obtain GreenGold timberland having primarily well-stocked 50-to-70-year-old Douglas-fir which provides near-term cash flow in Southern Oregon’s competitive log market,” reads the auction pamphlet.
“So you have to re-look at why they refused the sale in the first place, now what they’re planning on doing, it makes no sense," said Cheryl Bruner, secretary for the Williams Community Forest Project.
Bruner said they’re disappointed in the commissioners' decision to put the land up for auction instead. Neither Commissioner John West nor Herman Baertschiger responded to requests for an interview.
The community forest project still wants to keep the land out of the hands of timber companies.
“We want people who want to conserve the land to bid on the land,” Bruner said. ”And we’re having a meeting on Oct. 24 for the community to appraise them of what is happening and gain their support.”
The minimum bid price for the land is almost twice what the nonprofit originally offered, but that’s because it’s being bundled with another 280-acre tract of forestland nearby called Thompson Creek. Bruner said they’re trying to put together enough funding to make a bid on the land before the Nov. 14 auction.
This story comes from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
