>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Northeast Oregon isn't being treated fairly when it comes to timber issues, and, as many people noted during Tuesday's meeting at the Wallowa Senior Center, it's high time something is done about it.

Recently, the Wallowa Forest Products mill closed, idling 58 workers and plunging an entire community into economic dread and uncertainty.

Make no mistake, the indefinite layoffs will have a ripple effect. Millhands, loggers, truck drivers, shopkeepers, school teachers, moms, pops, kids and dogs are all going to feel it.

The indefinite layoff is a $5 million blow to Wallowa County's economy, and it's the last thing Wallowa County needed. It rings like a death knell on a time-honored way of life. Excepting a few very small operations, there are no sawmills left in the Land of Winding Waters.

Yes, poor market conditions play a part, but so do problems with log procurement. The D.R. Johnson Lumber Co., owner of Wallowa Forest Products, has said it could keep the mill running if it got enough logs from local federal forests instead of having to ship logs in from places far away.

For Wallowa County citizens, the laid-off and those who are dependent on them, the idea of a log shortage is hard to swallow. These people live in the middle of what should be an abundant forest. They know the forest should be providing a livelihood, yet it is not. To them, all the talk about market conditions, administrative costs, bidding competition, environmental restrictions and lawsuits from environmental groups rings hollow.

They know there's timber to be had, yet every summer they watch it go up in the smoke of wildfires. The debate over the need for healthy forests keeps ending in waste, mismanagement and burdensome costs to taxpayers. To Wallowa Countians, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny.

The idea that Eastern Oregon forests can't be healthy and sustain sawmills at the same time is absurd, unjust, unpardonable. The forests should be cleaned and thinned, with timber salvaged, milled and sent to market. It's that simple.

There's enough blame to go around, and when blame came around Tuesday, it settled on people who don't live here, on the policy makers at U.S. Forest Service Region 6 in Portland, and on members of congress in Washington, D.C.

As state Sen. Ted Ferrioli, Grant County Commissioner Boyd Britton, Wallowa County Commissioner Mike Hayward, Wallowa Mayor Ron Gay and others said, it's high time for Eastern Oregon to make its voice heard. Write letters. Make phone calls. Picket and demonstrate, if that's what it takes. Demand the right to work for a secure living, in an industry that pays a decent wage. A government owes its people at least that much.