[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 111 (Thursday, August 11, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                TIMBER JOBS VERSUS GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last month the Daily Olympian, a newspaper 
in Olympia, WA, published a stunning 4-day set of stories as a result 
of a 3-month investigation by three journalists led by veteran 
Washington State political reporter Bob Partlow. Their stories focus on 
what has happened in Northwest timber communities since the Federal 
Government decided to stop timber harvesting and replace timber jobs 
with Government assistance.
  For 5 years I have spoken about the Northwest timber-Spotted Owl 
crisis. Everyone knows where I stand. I have argued that Federal 
Spotted Owl protection has gone too far and that the administration has 
not sought a proper balance between the jobs of working families and 
rural communities and saving old forests.
  You have heard me often, but now hear the results of the work of 
these reporters.
  First, here is their map of Federal land that once was primarily 
timberland that is now set aside for owl habitat. How has this set 
aside affected lives?
  Listen to their story. It is a story of deliberate destruction of a 
vital American industry and destruction of a treasured way of life for 
honest working families. The U.S. Government, driven by sophisticated, 
well financed national environmental organizations and supported by the 
media and urban opinion leaders, has betrayed rural communities and 
destroyed--yes--destroyed--the lives and careers of tens of thousands 
of honest working families in the Pacific Northwest.

  What was that betrayal? It started when the President and Vice 
President at the Portland timber summit promised that people would not 
suffer greatly. They said that the timber harvest allocation would be 
reduced, causing the loss of a few thousand jobs, but that the people 
losing their jobs would not suffer greatly because of the Federal aid 
and job retraining dollars that would eliminate the pain. Just a little 
pain that the Government would fix.
  Listen to what has happened since this promise was made. Federal 
timber harvesting has been stopped--not slowed or reduced--but 
essentially stopped. The administration has chosen not to ask Congress 
for relief from Federal court injunctions, thus--choosing--choosing to 
continue the devastation of the Northwest Federal timber harvest. Not a 
few, but tens of thousands of jobs have been lost.
  So how successful has that retraining been?
  Listen, not to my words but to the words of Jim Coates of Hoquiam as 
I read from the Olympian article:

       Perhaps the best measure of the government's timber relief 
     effort is provided by people such as Jim Coates of Hoquiam, a 
     burly former sawmill worker. Coates regularly tosses 40-pound 
     boxes of government surplus cheese, tuna fish and juice from 
     a truck trailer to workers at 28 food banks in the 
     economically depressed logging country of Grays Harbor and 
     Pacific counties. ``When I started this job 5 years ago, we 
     served 3,000 people a month,'' he said. ``Now we're up to 
     18,123 in 28 food banks and two soup kitchens. Does that 
     sound like retraining in working to you?''

  Dan Goldy, former director of Oregon's Economic Development 
Department is quoted as follows:

       They're stricking a lollipop in the months of rural 
     communities so they won't scream as loudly about shutting 
     down their forests.

  There is only one answer to this crisis that will matter to these 
families that are suffering and that is for the President to propose 
and Congress to pass legislation allowing a reasonable and immediate 
timber harvest from Northwest forests.
  But let nobody be fooled. This Congress has shown no willingness to 
help, really help, these families, nor has this administration.
  TIME magazine, which 3 years ago featured on owl on its cover, will 
never revisit these devastated timber towns to see the consequences of 
its advocacy journalism in support of stopping logging. The major 
Northwest metropolitan papers, which advocated so long and so 
forcefully for more habitat protection, have not followed the Olympian 
journalists to see what their agenda has caused. They have won their 
battle, accomplished their goal of stopping logging, but the messy 
details of the ruined lives left in the wake have not yet darkened the 
pages of these journals.

  The lives of the urban opinion leaders who were so anxious to stop 
logging 2 or 3 years ago do not intersect with the lives of any of the 
18,123 families who are now waiting in Jim Coates food lines. Those 
18,000 families are out of sight and out of mind. These urban opinion 
leaders do not wish to be confronted with the consequences of their 
choice. It is awkward and uncomfortable. Their response is not to 
concern themselves with the cold human reality of those food bank 
families, but instead to rail against me or anyone who would dare 
suggest that their choice has crushed those real lives. I believe, I 
want to believe, that the lack of concern on the part of the opinion 
leaders who pushed so hard to stop timber harvesting is due to an 
ignorance of the rural plight rather than a lack of compassion.
  This issue, in the minds of the people who dominate Washington, DC, 
today, has been settled. They will not be troubled by the uncomfortable 
truth. That uncomfortable truth is that the Clinton administration's 
30-second sound bites, delivered 2 years ago when they promised both a 
reduced timber harvest and relief for the workers--was a fraud. What 
the workers got was unemployment and no real help. What those 
communities have is jobless families, desperation and no hope.

  The have been betrayed. They will listen to no more slick promises 
from politicians.
  One of the bitter ironies of this real drama is that these are 
families who did not begin despising their Government. These were the 
working families who, at least since FDR, believed that the Federal 
Government was generally on their side. These were families who paid 
their taxes and sent their sons to fight and sometimes die in America's 
wars. And they sent those sons proudly. But do not trouble yourself to 
ask them today whether they have faith in their Government still.
  I have searched my heart deeply asking whether my own anger stems 
from the fact that my point of view has not prevailed on this issue. I 
truly believe that it is not the root of my anger. I have been in 
public life for more than three decades and I have won and lost more 
public policy battles than I can remember, but those losses do not 
stick with me and leave me angry. But this one sticks with me because 
so much has been taken from so many people--their families and 
communities, Taken needlessly and under such false and glib pretenses.

  And the glib answers do not reach the truth. The glib answer is that 
many people lose their jobs every day and life goes on. The truth is 
that timber communities exist because the Federal Government made a 
promise decades ago that if these workers would move there they could 
harvest a sustainable amount of Federal timber forever. These are towns 
with practically no other economic options. Timber workers laid off in 
a timber town whose houses have lost virtually all of their values, are 
not like most laid-off workers. They have no other realistic options, 
and the Federal promise of job retraining is a national scandal that 
does not work.
  The glib answer says what Tom Tuchman, White House timber czar, is 
quoted in the Olympian as saying: ``You can't repeal the laws of 
change,'' as if the deliberate federal decision to stop timber 
harvesting was inevitable--like a law of nature. The truth is that Tom 
Tuchman, like so many who dominate Washington, DC, is an advocate for 
stopping logging. He supports the position espoused by the national 
environmental organizations who demonize timber workers and seek the 
cessation of virtually all logging in the Northwest and it is that 
choice--not the inevitable fact of change--and their power to enforce 
that choice is the reason that these families are suffering.
  The glib answer says that the Northwest is just about to run out of 
timber, or at least old growth timber, so that the end of the harvest 
was inevitable. The truth is that more than 70 percent of Northwest old 
growth forests were already set aside forever in parks, wilderness 
areas and designated reserves and that even in the 1980's we were not 
harvesting our Federal forests faster than the rate of regeneration.
  The glib answer says that we should stop log exports to invent more 
mill jobs. The truth is that not a stick--not one stick of public 
timber is exported raw from the Northwest. We have ended all State and 
Federal log exports. All that remains is private property. And no 
honest person can, with a straight face, argue that banning private log 
exports will help any displaced workers in the rural communities that 
depend on Federal timber harvests. Nobody on this planet could survive 
in business by harvesting timber on the lowland private timberlands and 
then shipping those logs up to the more remote communities hurting 
today--it will not happen and the glib answer of banning private log 
exports is another fraud, as well as confiscation of private property 
values.
  The truth is that we do not have to destroy these communities, 18,000 
people do not have to wait in the Grays Harbor food lines in order to 
save old growth forests. The truth is that a fair balance can be found.
  Someday, the truth will come out. But that someday has not come. The 
Olympian reporters have my respect. I fervently hope that their 
reporting prompts a reexamination of this issue that sheds light on the 
cold truth, the truth that the Grays Harbor food banks today serve 
18,123 people in a county with a population of less than 60,000.
  Can we imagine, possibly imagine, the response--properly--of decision 
makers in Washington, DC, the metropolitan Northwest media and opinion 
leaders in Washington State, if a deliberate federal policy put one-
third of Portland or King County residents in food bank lines? None of 
us would tolerate such a result. So why do so many tolerate such a 
result in rural Northwest communities?
  I fear that the truth affecting these rural communities is not likely 
soon to permeate past the tens of millions of dollars and sophisticated 
mass communications techniques of the national environmental 
organizations.
  The truth is not likely to be heard or acted upon by the majority of 
members of this Congress who have cast their safe green vote, assuring 
the reelection support of the national environmental organizations and 
their troops.
  But, still, someday the truth will out. God will not long ignore this 
preventable human suffering in our midst. Honest people will continue 
to seek the truth and question a public policy that causes so much 
pain.

  But what do we do in the meantime? I pray to God that somebody else 
will listen now. I pray that wisdom, compassion and understanding will 
come to those who dominate Washington, D.C. now. I pray that, soon, 
those who have chosen this course understand that they must change to 
prevent even more pain from being visited on honest families who have 
lost so much in the Northwest.
  My opponents on this question will hasten to say ``we can't return to 
the old timber harvest levels of 5 billion board feet a year.'' I say 
``fine, but let us split the difference and immediately let these 
communities harvest half of what they had grown to expect. That will 
leave plenty of owl habitat, but it will also restore hopes and mend 
the broken lives of many Northwest families.''
  I am frustrated with this administration; I do not believe for a 
minute that the President wishes so much pain for so many families. I 
know that he does not. But the suffering is happening now because of 
decisions made by his administration. Through his action or inaction 
his administration will be judged. Thus far it has responded with 
indifference.
  After the November elections I will make a formal request of the 
Senate Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations hold a field hearing in 
Washington State to answer some of the disturbing questions raised by 
the series in the Olympian. I will ask that the hearing be held before 
the start of the next session of Congress, so that it will be divorced 
from partisan politics, as this issue deserves more than partisan 
politics. I want these hearings to ensure that the money the Federal 
Government is spending is spent well and effectively. The people of 
these communities deserve, at the very least, to be assured that the 
little money that we are spending actually helps them.
  So I close with a request that the President immediately propose 
legislation that will get timber flowing into our starving Northwest 
communities. If this legislation only provides for a short-term timber 
harvest, fine; that is not my preference, but I will be its advocate, 
and I will praise the President, because we need whatever we can get 
now.
  I cannot assure that Congress will pass such legislation, though I 
believe that if the President pushes and the Northwest delegation 
supports him, we can succeed. But I can promise the only thing that an 
individual legislator can promise in the end. My promise is, Mr. 
President, that if the administration sends to Congress legislation 
that will cut through all of the roadblocks immediately and get timber 
flowing to help these desperate families and communities now, this 
Senator will vote, and speak and fight for it with all that is within 
me.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to place the entire series of 
articles in the Record.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record as follows:

                        Loggers Left With Crumbs


  taxpayer money: government agencies cannot produce an accounting of 
                  where timber dollars have been spent

                  (By Bob Partlow and Trask Tapperson)

       Five years and more than $100 million later, government 
     programs to help Northwest loggers and their communities have 
     failed.
       Massive logging cutbacks on federal forests have stripped 
     the region of thousands of jobs.
       State and federal agencies have poured money into studies, 
     plans, consultants, unemployment benefits, seed money and 
     retraining programs to rescue the people and their towns.
       But a three-month investigation by The Olympian and The 
     Bellingham Herald reveals:
       Government agencies haven't tracked overall spending or 
     handling of programs to train timber workers for other jobs.
       They can't give an accounting of how much money they spent, 
     where it went and whether it did any good.
       Many loggers and their communities aren't finding new lives 
     after the devastation caused by government- and court-ordered 
     shutdowns of forests primarily to protect the northern 
     spotted owl.
       Though some retraining ideas have met success; they don't 
     offset the widespread problems in many of the government 
     timber programs.
       ``As a long-term effort, it's been a complete failure,'' 
     said Roger Reidel, a former millworker who oversees forest-
     related issues for the Washington State Labor Council.
       His assessment is shared throughout logging communities in 
     Washington, Oregon and Northern California.
       Perhaps the best measure of the government's timber relief 
     effort is provided by people such as Jim Coates of Hoquiam, a 
     burly former sawmill worker.
       Coates regularly tosses 40-pound boxes of government 
     surplus cheese, tuna fish and juice from a truck trailer to 
     workers at 28 food banks in the economically depressed 
     logging country of Grays Harbor and Pacific counties.
       ``When I started this job five years ago, we served 3,000 
     people a month,'' he said.
       ``Now we're up to 18,123 in 28 food banks and two soup 
     kitchens.
       ``Does that sound like retraining is working to you?''
       On the other hand, government officials point to the 
     Clinton administration's plans to spend $1.2 billion to help 
     loggers during the next five years.
       ``It's a good plan,'' said Tom Tuchmann, the White House 
     timber czar in the Northwest.
       ``I believe in it. It recognizes people are hurting.
       ``You can't repeal that laws of change. You can only manage 
     them. We're trying to manage,'' he said. ``Some things are 
     going to work. Some things aren't going to work.''
       But U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said most of that $1.2 
     billion isn't a new infusion of cash.
       Instead, it's money from other government programs 
     repackaged as timber aid, he said.
       ``They're sticking a lollipop in the mouths of rural 
     communities so they won't scream as loudly about shutting 
     down their forests,'' said Dan Goldy, former director of 
     Oregon's Economic Development Department.
       Where is the money? The government can't say--it doesn't 
     keep track.
       White House response: Clinton officials say the 
     administration's timber recovery plan takes time.
       The Brewers: The Darrington logging family has tried to get 
     government aid, but they face roadblocks.
       Monday: A web of government bureaucracy captures people in 
     its net.
       Tuesday: Much of the timber money has paid for consultants, 
     studies and administrative costs.
       Wednesday: Some people have found solutions through 
     retraining programs or community efforts.
                                  ____


              Nobody Can Explain Where the Money Has Gone


timber retraining: government agencies cannot account for the millions 
    of dollars earmarked for community and worker recovery programs

                  (By Trask Tapperson and Bob Partlow)

       ``Where has the money gone?''
       Patti Hicklin, a part-time instructor at a job retraining 
     center in the timber town of Forks, isn't alone in asking 
     that question.
       From union offices to university halls, people want to know 
     how much the government has spent to help workers and 
     communities rebound from sweeping logging cutbacks ordered 
     mostly to protect the threatened northern spotted owl.
       And they want to know if the money has done any good.
       They aren't getting many answers because government 
     officials at every level cannot or will not release bottom-
     line figures.
       After a three-month investigation, The Olympian and The 
     Bellingham Herald estimate that governments have channeled 
     more than $100 million since 1989 to the recovery programs.
       But that's only a guess because no clearinghouse exists to 
     track the spending or results of training programs--either in 
     the federal government or in Washington, Oregon and Northern 
     California.
       The newspapers filed 53 Freedom of Information requests 
     with state and federal agencies in the three states to pursue 
     the money trail.
       ``It's going to be tough for them to get the information 
     you want because some of them don't know where their records 
     are,'' said Lauri Hennessey, spokeswoman for President 
     Clinton's forest plan. ``They were never tracking it or 
     keeping it in one place.''
       The newspapers followed up with repeated calls to officials 
     at the top agencies to renew the request for numbers.
       A sample of the newspapers' questions:
       How much money did the agency receive, and how much did it 
     spend?
       How much did the agency use for administrative costs and 
     how much for timber worker retraining programs?
       How many people got jobs after retraining, and how long did 
     they last?
       The newspapers also tried to trace the money through dozens 
     of people in and out of government, including officials at 
     private industry councils and economic development 
     associations.
       In all, 42 of the agencies eventually responded to the 
     written requests--from the giant U.S. Department of Labor to 
     the tiny town of Naches north of Yakima.
       They sent information in a variety of governmnt forms or no 
     forms at all, producing a three-inch stack of reports on 
     taxpayer dollars spent.
       The information included actual contracts with consultants 
     to spreadsheets (one handwritten), newsletters and newspaper 
     clippings. They often trickled in weeks after the initial 
     request--and even more than two months in some cases.
       Some agencies put a price tag on their response.
       ``We estimate that gathering this information will take two 
     full-time people five full days,'' wrote Jennifer Kang, 
     spokeswoman for the Oregon Economic Development Department. 
     ``I'm guessing, but this could run you up to $1,000.''
       Ray Daffner, executive director of the Oregon--based WPPC, 
     and association of businesses that make finished wood 
     products, said Oregon officials want to keep the door closed. 
     ``They don't want any scrutiny,' he said. ``If they wanted to 
     they could tell you.''
       Other agencies replied, only to flatly refuse to provide 
     any information short of a court fight.
       ``We must decline because your request is not focused on a 
     specific issue or problem,'' wrote the Resources Agency of 
     California, a leader for regionwide effort to help displaced 
     timber workers.
       Many agencies said they simply didn't keep track of the 
     numbers.
       ``In response to your request for a head count of all 
     persons who obtained new employment as a result of money 
     spent, a head count of all types of new employment obtained 
     and the length the jobs were held, please be advised that we 
     do not have any records responsive to that request,'' wrote 
     the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. 
     Department of Commerce.
       Even Robert Rheiner couldn't supply numbers. He is co-
     chairman of the Regional Economic Revitalization Team in 
     Portland, Ore., created by the Clinton administration to 
     route federal money to timber workers looking for help.
       In the end, only fragmentary figures emerged, but they show 
     a startling lack of accountability.
       In many cases, government agencies didn't follow up to see 
     if their programs helped timber workers find jobs in new 
     professions, ranging from nurses to small-business owners.
       In other cases, they knew people found jobs, but didn't 
     know if the workers received a living wage or how long they 
     were employed.
       That's true even for programs cited by the government as 
     models in the retraining effort, such as Lane County 
     Community College in Eugene, Ore.
       Program Director Patty Lake cited statistics to show how 
     well former timber and millworkers are doing after attending 
     her school's programs:
       Since 1989, about three-fourths of the 2,200 laid-off wood 
     products workers who took classes have new jobs; three-
     fourths of them are in their retraining field and most make 
     at least 90 percent of their previous wage--averaging $9 to 
     $9.50 per hour. But the program surveys students in the first 
     three months of leaving school. After that, nobody knows.
       The federal government won't begin until this fall to track 
     the results of worker retraining and community renewal 
     programs, said Laura McFarland, a Rheiner aide.
       A long-term look at how workers are faring isn't expected 
     for almost five years, she said.
       U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., questioned how wisely the 
     Clinton administration can spend a planned $1.2 billion on 
     timber relief during the next five years when the current 
     spending records are so incomplete.
       ``That's a whole other story,'' Hatfield said. ``If you 
     find out the answer, let me know.''
                                  ____


               Family Willing To Try Anything to Survive


Learning to cope: ``If you want help, you've got to look at the end of 
                    your sleeves,'' Ron Brewer says

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       Darrington.--After more than two decades immersed in 
     Washington's timber culture, Ron and Shari Brewer consider 
     logging as much a lifestyle as a livelihood.
       The Brewers enjoyed both from the woods as they logged in 
     the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest under contracts 
     with the U.S. Forest Service.
       They didn't get rich working in the 1.7-million-acre 
     stretch along the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains.
       But they could afford ballet lessons for daughter Rhonda, 
     now 14; flights on rented light planes with Ron at the 
     controls; a family vacation to the Southwest desert so Shari 
     could see wildflowers in bloom.
       No more.
       The Brewers may join tens of thousands of people in the 
     Northwest's coastal woodbelt who must find another line of 
     work.
       That's because the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie Forest is now 
     reserved mostly for recreation, said U.S. Rep. Al Swift, D-
     Bellingham. Logging has all but ended as legal protection of 
     forestland increases.
       The protections range from scenic river corridors and 
     wilderness areas to habitat preserves for northern spotted 
     owls--goals of predominantly urban residents and groups, 
     Swift said.
       ``You live on Queen Anne Hill (in Seattle) and it's really 
     great to save all the trees around the people in 
     Darrington,'' Swift said sarcastically.


                              Tight times

       The Brewers, Whatcom County natives, just sold some land 
     they have owned for years near Acme. The money may help pay 
     for a small farm they are looking at east of the mountains.
       Shari, 43, envisions running the farmhouse as a bed-and-
     breakfast for tourists while her husband works the farm.
       Ballet lessons, recreational flying and desert vacations 
     got squeezed out of the family's tight budget more than a 
     year ago.
       Those luxuries flowed in the mid-1980s when their R.L. 
     Logging and Land Clearing business has 12 full-time employees 
     and six log-truck drivers under contract, grossed an average 
     $500,000 and netted about $50,000 a year. Like virtually all 
     small-time operators reliant on timber-harvest contracts, the 
     Brewers experienced tough times even before the logging bans.
       A bankrupt logging company owed them $180,000. They were 
     involved in an unrelated lawsuit that temporarily tied up 
     collateral to refinance their house, which they then lost.
       By the start of the '90s, they lived in a rented home and 
     worked for others. Their savings dwindled.
       By February, Ron's unemployment benefits ran out. By 
     spring, Shari's part-time job at an Arlington nursing home 
     dropped to a few days a month, barely making it worth the 28-
     mile round-trip drive.
       Today, they put food on the table with pickup work.
       Last month, Shari did occasional jobs for the U.S. Navy, 
     conducting guided nature tours at a naval reservation in the 
     forest. Ron does odd jobs with his bulldozer--clearing land, 
     building ponds, fixing roads and excavating building sites. 
     ``What it boils down to is, if you want help, you've got to 
     look at the end of your sleeves,'' he said.


                           Ron's job hunting

       The two have hit dead ends in more than a half-dozen 
     attempts in the past several years to get government aid--
     despite millions of dollars poured into the Northwest for 
     timber worker retraining and community renewal.
       Ron's job hunting as well as his self-employment efforts 
     have been rebuffed, the Brewers believe, in some cases 
     because Ron is 46. Examples include.
       Helicopter logging pilot: Ron has a private pilot's license 
     and said he needs about $4,000 to $6,000 to get rated for 
     choppers. The role of helicopters in logging may grow with 
     the new emphasis on selective harvests in roadless areas.
       Ron said he asked for help form the Snohomish County 
     Private Industry Council, which has received several hundred 
     thousand dollars in grants to help timber workers.
       Council Executive Director Emily Duncan said she didn't 
     recall Brewer or his request.
       Applications of that sort go to the state Employment 
     Security Department, but Duncan said she doubted the training 
     would receive approval because of its ``higher-than-average 
     training costs.''
       Another deterrent is that the helicopter job would leave 
     Brewer in the same precarious job field, said Kathy 
     Kerkvliet, an Employment Security Department official in 
     Mount Vernon.
       Environmental engineer: Every Sunday, Ron sees several 
     openings for environmental engineers listed in Seattle 
     newspaper ads. He asked the Employment Security Department 
     for retraining help to qualify for such work but was told it 
     would take too long and cost too much.
       ``The intent of the program is more vocational in nature,'' 
     Kerkvliet said. ``There isn't the funding to fund a person 
     for a four-year degree. There's thousands more people than 
     there are funds.''
                                  ____


                   A Look at Your Tax Dollars at Work

       The incomplete numbers tell only part of the timber story.
       They don't disclose questionable spending practices or the 
     human cost of the decision to ban logging on at least 7 
     million of acres in Washington, Oregon and Northern 
     California.
       The three-month investigation by The Olympian and The 
     Bellingham Herald found these examples of how governments 
     spent tax dollars to help dislocated timber workers and their 
     communities:
       Three loggers learned how to become scuba divers in 1992 
     through a state of Washington program. Price tag: $30,000, 
     including a week of warm-water diving in the Mexican resort 
     town of Cozumel and another week in Houston to attend a scuba 
     equipment convention. ``It was a waste of money, but I had a 
     good time,'' said Carl Gockerell, one of the loggers.
       Gockerell now has a job marking trees for sale in forests. 
     Of the other two loggers, one is unemployed and the other 
     works as a crab fisher.
       Thousands of dollars went to economic development seminars. 
     In addition to the usual speakers, a three-day Timber 
     Communities Conference in Ellensburg last April included a 
     series of games with plastic mice, paper airplanes and water 
     pistols.
       Price tag: $12,114.76.
       Economic development activists in Grays Harbor bought self-
     esteem tapes to boost the confidence of unemployed timber 
     workers and others. Price tag: $43,200 in public and private 
     money.
       A six-week government-sponsored ``career assessment'' 
     program offered by Grays Harbor College included a one-day 
     physical obstacle course on the Wynochee River. During the 
     Outward Bound-type exercises, loggers go scurrying up ropes 
     in a class to build their self-confidence. Price tag: $500 
     for each student. The college also uses state money to defray 
     costs.
                                  ____


     Clinton Administration on Timber Crisis: Just Wait for Results


government response: white house officials say they are rebuilding the 
                   timber program, but it takes time

                  (By Trask Tapperson and Bob Partlow)

       The White House is trying to reinvent the government's 
     response to the timber crisis to avoid past failures, Clinton 
     administration officials say.
       But with more than one-third of the president's term 
     already over, they can't provide numbers that show 
     improvements since Clinton took office.
       Yet they insist their project to retrain timber workers is 
     turning around and blame the Bush administration for leaving 
     them with a program in disarray.
       ``The alternative is to do nothing. That's unacceptable,'' 
     said Tom Tuchmann, the Poland, Ore.-based White House 
     official in charge of Clinton's forest plan.
       ``If we started doing this five or six years ago, we 
     wouldn't have a crisis. We inherited a train wreck,'' 
     Tuchmann said. ``You can't change that overnight. It took us 
     a year to put this plan together. In forest planning, that's 
     fast.''
       U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich said the administration 
     is ``rebuilding the track, lining up the trains and putting 
     on a new locomotive.''
       But for those already hit by the train, it's too late. ``A 
     lot of people are hurting,'' Reich said.
       Tuchmann and other federal forestry officials said they 
     should be judged only on what the federal government has done 
     since November 1993, when their Economic Adjustment 
     Initiative began.
       That's the name of the people side of Clinton's two-sided 
     approach to solving the Northwest's forest crisis. It deals 
     with worker retraining and community renewal.
       The program's other half deals primarily with the 
     environment and other forest management concerns.
       The initiative grew out of the administration's so-called 
     Option 9 plan for Northwest forests that put more than 7 
     million acres of public land into reserves.
       ``Give us until the end of the year, when we've been at 
     this a year, and we will be a lot more accountable,'' 
     Tuchmann said.
       Yet a top administration official already has touted the 
     success of the initiative. White House Deputy Chief of Staff 
     Roy Neel trumpeted it to 13 other top Clinton appointees in a 
     Nov. 29, 1993, memo.
       He called for a ``full-court press' strategy to ensure the 
     effective implementation of the plan. The administration has 
     already made some significant progress on this front.''
       He also noted that ``the plan is complex and there is 
     little margin for error.''
       Away from government offices in Portland's glass 
     skyscrapers, the common view is that the Clinton 
     administration's revamping isn't an improvement over what 
     came before.
       ``Tuchmann doesn't see it,'' said Portland forest economist 
     Dan Goldy, former director of the Oregon Economic Development 
     Department. ``He's got Option 9 blinders on. Over 50 percent 
     of Oregon lands are publicly owned. We're looking at an 
     economic catastrophe in this state.''
       Said U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., ``There is no 
     accountability, I haven't seen it (in the government 
     programs).''
       Chris Chandler, state coordinator of the Salem, Ore.-based 
     Oregon Lands Coalition, said she has no evidence that the 
     Clinton forest plan is any better.
       The coalition's 65 member groups include union locals and 
     timber, ranching and mining interests that are promoting a 
     larger timber harvest than allowed under the Clinton plan.
       ``Retraining is the hardest thing in the world to get 
     information about,'' Chandler said.
       But Shari said her husband got another reason, 
     unofficially.
       ``A gentleman at Employment Security told him that even if 
     he did take classes and finished at the top, he would more 
     than likely be passed over for a younger person with the same 
     qualifications,'' she said.
       Equipment operator: Ron has spent 25 years running 
     everything from giant bulldozers to yarders that pull downed 
     trees to collection points.
       ``I have experience in climbing trees and operating chain 
     saws. I have worked in all kinds of inclement weather. I am a 
     nondrinker/nonsmoker,'' said his letter two years ago to the 
     Snohomish County Public Utility District.
       He didn't get the equipment operator job.
       The same utility soon offered job-training classes for 
     workers at an Everett pulp mill that Weyerhaeuser Co. was 
     about to close. Ron would have welcomed a chance to attend 
     those sessions, but he wasn't eligible.
       Road worker: The state Department of Natural Resources is 
     tearing up 72 miles of old logging roads in northwest 
     Washington and leasing new equipment to do the job. ``Why 
     don't they give a logger that job so they can make payments 
     on their own equipment?'' Ron asked.
       The agency has no prohibition against that, said Northwest-
     area spokesman Mark Morrow. ``But we can't think of anyone 
     who's met the criteria of being a displaced timber worker and 
     had their own equipment.''


                          Shari's job hunting

       Shari's efforts to get the family on its feet have hit 
     other government snags.
       Like Ron, she looked at returning to school. She applied in 
     1990 to Skagit Valley Community College and the county 
     Private Industry Council for assistance to get a two-year 
     degree in parks and recreation administration.
       ``There was only $400 in support money for the entire two 
     years,'' she said. ``Round-trip mileage to the college was 
     120 miles a day. I didn't even begin.
       She cited a string of roadblocks to a three-year effort get 
     her ``Off the Beaten Track'' forest guide service up and 
     running.
       The Private Industry Council promised to help her with 
     marketing for one year if she completed a 100-hour business 
     course, she said.
       She did, but ``six weeks after the classes ended, I got a 
     letter that said, `We're sorry, we're out of funding, and the 
     marketing help is not available,'''she said.
       She spent $500 of the family's savings for brochures. 
     They're gathering dust as permits and other requirements to 
     start operations remain enmeshed in a thicket of government 
     restrictions.
       One she cites is a state constitutional ban on investing 
     public money in private businesses such as her fledgling 
     enterprise.
       ``I could be up and running for about $15,000'' she said. 
     That includes $12,000 for a used tour van, $3,000 for 
     marketing, $600 for liability insurance and $85 for Forest 
     Service permits. Without the insurance, the Forest Service 
     balks at giving her permission to take people into the woods.
       ``All the timber dollars that have come in here have paid 
     people to tell us how to do it,'' Shari said. ``There's 
     nothing for individual persons in start-up loans.
       ``I think it would be better spent than hiring people to 
     come up here and tell me how to do it,'' she said. ``They've 
     sunk maybe $50,000 into counselors, who don't know the needs 
     of the community. That would have started up three 
     businesses.''
       Shari said she earned about $1,500 for her family last year 
     picking wild berries. In April, she said the Natural 
     Resources Department denied her a permit to enter Ash and 
     Squire Creek roads to her prime berry area because they are 
     managing it more restrictively for wildlife.
       ``The bottom line is you're on your own,'' she said.
                                  ____


                   Where Did $100 Million Come From?


accountability: the overall estimate of timber aid is an educated guess 
              based on figures supplied by a state agency

                  (By Bob Partlow and Trask Tapperson)

       The Olympian and Bellingham Herald have estimated that 
     government agencies in Washington, Oregon and Northern 
     California spent more than $100 million from mid-1989 to mid-
     1994 to aid workers and towns.
       But that's only an educated guess because no state or 
     federal agency in the region has any precise, reliable 
     figures.
       The Washington Department of Community Trade and Economic 
     Development supplied the best numbers, saying about $34 
     million had been spent on the timber problem in the state 
     during the past five years.
       Estimates for Oregon and California are a guess because 
     agencies there would not respond to requests for information 
     or would do so only at a high cost.
       Government officials and industry leaders say Washington 
     loggers and communities feel about one-quarter of the impact 
     of logging cutbacks. About 60 percent of the impact falls on 
     Oregon and the rest on California, they say.
       If Washington's numbers are correct, a figure of more than 
     $100 million is a conservative estimate for the three-state 
     region. A congressional source who asked not to be named said 
     that estimate is probably accurate, although he indicated no 
     overall figures exist.
       The newspapers received a wide variety of responses to 
     requests made under the Freedom of Information Act and state 
     public records laws.
       Some agencies gave clear, concise information about their 
     small corners of the multi-million-dollar effort:
    
    
       The Eastern Washington Partnership, for example, provided 
     information about its $107,405 grant to retrain workers: 
     length of the grant, actual expenditures, administrative 
     costs, number of people who participated, what happened to 
     them after they received training and the cost per 
     participant.
       They spent only $102,773 of the money allocated.
       The U.S. Department of Labor also provided data that mapped 
     how much money was spent in Washington and Oregon the past 
     half decade under the Worker Adjustment Program. Its charts 
     detailed the number of participants, how many weeks the 
     average participant was trained, average hourly wage before 
     the program and hourly wage at the program's end, total 
     program costs and a follow-up employment rate, among other 
     things.
       ``People have a right to know how their dollars are being 
     spent,'' said Tom Tuchmann, President Clinton's forest plan 
     czar.
       But even the Department of Labor didn't keep track of 
     workers after 13 weeks--and department money is only part of 
     the government pie divided up in the states.
       The lack of detailed numbers comes despite Gov. Booth 
     Gardner's creation of a ``timber team'' in Washington in 1989 
     to bring together public agencies and private groups to 
     coordinate a response to help timber communities.
       The team produced one detailed report in December 1992 but 
     didn't follow up after that.
                                  ____


              State Timber Workers Last to Get Federal Aid


Slices of the pie: At least 156 agencies vie for federal timber dollars

                  (By Bob Partlow and Trask Tapperson)

       Veteran U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon doesn't know how 
     much money is being gobbled up by bureaucrats that is 
     supposed to help timber workers and their towns.
       Because he can't get answers, he just says it's quite a 
     bit.
       Laurence Larsen, the owner of a Darrington hardware store, 
     also doesn't know but said money thrown at the problem gets 
     whittled down like a ``silver dollar to a dime.''
       With at least 156 agencies with a finger or two in the 
     governmental pie cooked to help loggers and their towns, 
     every bureaucraft and consultant seems to get a piece before 
     the last few crumbs are sent to help timber workers.
       Kristi Reece, a U.S. Forest Service employee in Darrington, 
     said her agency is typical.
       ``Money comes from Congress,'' she said. ``The Washington 
     office takes its share. Then the regional office gets its 
     share. Then the supervisor's office gets a percentage. Then 
     the district office gets a percentage. By the time it gets to 
     the workers, it's not the full amount Congress allocated. 
     People may not like it, but that's the way it is. That's the 
     way it's always been.''
       Congressional reports studying retraining programs such as 
     those for timber workers have called them wasteful, 
     duplicative, overlapping, late in providing help, mismanaged 
     and inefficient.
       The Clinton administration says it is trying to sort out 
     the competing bureaucratic interests and get everybody 
     pulling together.
       Whether it can or will work remains an open question.
       ``This may look like a piecemeal approach to you,'' Reece 
     said. ``You should have seen the way it was before.''
       Bob Partlow, 47 has been the state government reporter for 
     The Olympian for the past 10\1/2\ years.
       He covers the Legislature, state government and politics, 
     and has done extensive investigative reporting.
       Before moving to Olympia, he held a similar job for six 
     years with the Herald. He also was a radio reporter in Blaine 
     and Anacortes for four years and attended Western Washington 
     University from 1965-69.
       Trask Tapperson, 55, began his newspaper career 33 years 
     ago as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Among his 
     jobs: political, legislative and government correspondent. He 
     also was a member of the newspapers' Editorial Board. 
     Tapperson joined The Bellingham Herald in 1982 as environment 
     and energy reporter and was city editor for five years before 
     becoming business editor and special projects reporter.
       Dick Milligan, 56, has been a photographer at The Olympian 
     for the past 18 years and is now the chief photographer. 
     Before being hired by The Olympian, Milligan spent 20 years 
     in the Marine Corps as a photographer. In his career, he has 
     photographed everything from politicians to posies, and he 
     shows a strong preference for the posies.
                                  ____


           Clinton Administration Adds to Bureaucratic Jungle


  more government: the president's solution for the timber crisis has 
                       added layers of government

                  (By Bob Partlow and Trask Tapperson)

       No less than 156 bureaucracies help carry out President 
     Clinton's Northwest forest plan, 98 alone to help timber 
     workers and towns.
       Some agencies are public, such as government departments; 
     others are private, such as industry councils; still others 
     are a blend of both, such as economic development councils.
       The public players are at all levels of government--
     federal, state and local. Some are in separate governments, 
     such as Indian tribes.
       Together they have spent more than $100 million during the 
     past five years on dozens of programs in a mostly 
     unsuccessful effort to steer loggers, millworkers and their 
     communities to new lives.
       Their old lives are falling prey to logging cutbacks in 
     Northwest forests that stem mostly from a move to protect the 
     northern spotted owl.


                           bureaucratic maze

       The maze of agencies is one of the top reasons why 
     government officials can't say where the money has gone and 
     whether it has done any good.
       ``You put a silver dollar in the end of the pipe and 
     somehow a dime comes out the other end,'' said Laurence L. 
     Larsen. He owns Darrington's only hardware store and has 
     served on state economic development committees.
       Streamlining the bureaucracy was one of the Clinton 
     administration's early claims of success. From the president 
     down, federal officials talked about how they were 
     reinventing government systems.
       What the administration invented for the timber crisis was 
     at least five more layers of bureaucracy on top of the 156 
     departments, bureaus, administrations, boards, councils, 
     consortia and tribes.
       At the behest of the White House, the federal government 
     and three Northwest states created ``economic revitalization 
     teams'' to coordinate about 1,200 applications for money and 
     other help for distressed communities and worker groups.
       The state teams feed the applications to the regional team 
     based in a Portland, Ore., skyscraper. The regional team, in 
     turn, feeds them to various components of the federal 
     bureaucracy.
       ``We feel we're not creating bureaucracy, we feel we're 
     making bureaucracy run much more efficiently,'' said Robert 
     Rheiner, cochairman of the regional team.
       Yet a few blocks away in another Portland skyscraper is 
     another White House creation: the Inter-Agency Office of 
     Forestry and Economic Development. Its director, former U.S. 
     Senate staffer Tom Tuchmann, oversees the president's timber 
     plan to manage Northwest forests and renew timber economies.
       The Clinton administration has identified 47 barriers to 
     effective retraining and community development. They range 
     from muddled chains of command to different criteria for 
     approval of the same kinds of requests.


                             Not the answer

       Adding more bureaucratic tentacles isn't the answer, said 
     Linda Morra, director of education and employment issues for 
     the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of 
     Congress.
       ``Coordinators frequently carry costs,'' Morra said. ``It's 
     not quite clear that the most efficient way out of this maze 
     is to have people coordinated. You're dealing with a system 
     that's fragmented and inefficient.''
       Then why perpetuate it? Larsen is among those who thing 
     they know.
       ``They spread all this money around, a mile wide and in 
     inch deep,'' he said. ``It doesn't do any good, but it does 
     have political benefit.''
       That's borne out by the types of officials chosen to serve 
     on the various revitalization teams, said David Ford, 
     president of the Western Forest Industries Association. The 
     group represents 100 small mill owners in 12 Western states.
       ``Look at their makeup,'' Ford said. ``They're all 
     government people looking for ribbon-cutting projects--a new 
     sewer, lighting, paving, infrastructure things--without 
     looking at maintaining the tax base that they have.''
       A big reason for that, Ford said, is that Clinton's forest 
     plan ``was cobbled together. They threw money at a 
     problem, hoping it would go away. They start from the 
     premise the industry will die.''
       In fact, Ford said, by its approach to relief ``the 
     administration is saying the industry already is dead.''
       Meanwhile, no one is monitoring the bottom line for cash 
     flowing through the government programs and what the money is 
     buying. For example:
       When the U.S. Department of Labor puts federal tax dollars 
     into state programs, the states are left to track how those 
     dollars are spent and what they buy, said Armando Quiroz, the 
     department's top employment and training official for 
     Washington and Oregon.
       Of 135 timber-related studies and plans performed in 
     Washington since 1989, the state tracked the results of only 
     12. Local officials were left to figure out what taxpayers 
     got for their money in the other 123.
       Tuchmann said the Labor Department is a ``money 
     distributor, not a money monitor.''
       Government waste may be a great deal more costly than the 
     $100 million-plus spent on the timber crisis. Several reports 
     from the General Accounting Office criticize government job 
     retraining programs in general.
       They cite:
       Complexity.
       Failure to tailor programs to match worker needs.
       Administrative inefficiencies.
       Lack of accountability.
       Particularly worrisome is the high administrative costs 
     that agencies spend solving the same problem, according to 
     the General Accounting Office.
       Washington state numbers show costs of administering 
     assistance programs for timber workers and towns range from 
     little or nothing to about 12 percent. Neither Tuchmann nor 
     officials in the three Northwest states could or would say 
     what they are.
       General Accounting Office officials said administrative 
     costs of some other federal retraining programs are in the 
     same range, while others are in the range of 15 percent to 20 
     percent.
       The problem isn't just costs. There are serious problems 
     with the way the governments set up some programs.
       For example, governments typically require displaced 
     workers to go through retraining to receive extended 
     unemployment benefits. So they enroll in school, often 
     community colleges. But the benefits frequently run out 
     before their retraining programs are completed.
       ``Then we have to choose between survival and education,'' 
     said Kevin Browning, a former logger from Roseburg, Ore. He 
     wanted to get a business degree but now is caught in such a 
     bind.
       Many involved in the retraining programs--from timber 
     workers to those in local businesses that depend on them--
     feel the bureaucrats who administer them ignore the human 
     element.
       When workers do get training for new jobs, it's often for 
     positions that don't exist. Examples include the glutted 
     fields of truck driver and diesel mechanic. To rectify that, 
     Washington state was supposed to do a market study of jobs 
     available. It hasn't been done, state officials said.
       Scott Haugen, a former logger in Forks, said the only 
     reason he successfully trained to become a diesel mechanic is 
     because ``I had every break in the world.''
       He overcame several bureaucratic obstacles--including 
     having to pay for most of his tools after the government said 
     it would provide them.
       Not all the problems arise with the bureaucrats.
       Another obstacle to successful retraining is the ingrained 
     reluctance to change or relocate among those working in rural 
     timber towns.
       Often their roots sink deeper than an old-growth Douglas 
     fir's. Already hostile toward a government they say has 
     denied them a living, many are in no mood to leave--no matter 
     what the cost.
       ``I have four or five generations of my relatives buried 
     here,'' said Coin King of Forks, a onetime firebrand timber 
     activist.
       He still carries the torch but is busy nowadays trying to 
     scrape together a living in the woods. ``Why should I have to 
     go move to become a VCR repairman in Seattle?'' he asked.
       George Bernard Shaw Jr. spent a quarter century falling 
     timber in Oregon and Washington. He lost his last job in 
     December and now is struggling to get a two-year degree at 
     Peninsula Community College in Port Angeles.
       It's part of his effort to find a new way to make a 
     living--and a desperate attempt to avert a move to more 
     populous places with more job opportunities.
       ``I don't want to live in the city,'' he sad. ``I just 
     can't do it. I'd live out here and starve first.''
                                  ____


                 Retraining Program Turned Out Useless


Surviving: The Lynches of Hoquiam have found a way to survive--without 
                         the governments's help

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Hoquiam.--If ever a man looked like a logger, it was Larry 
     Lynch.
       A 1989 photo shows him with a bushy beard, suspenders, 
     plaid shirt, standing in a forest.
       ``He was the American logger,'' said his wife, Renee Lynch. 
     But he lost his job in February 1990. The couple and their 
     three children almost went bankrupt and had to cash in their 
     insurance policies. The winter of 1980-90 was ``an absolute 
     nightmare,'' Renee said.
       An advocate for devastated timber families, she recalls 
     sorting out rotten potatoes from good ones at the local food 
     bank. Her family also was getting help from the food bank. 
     ``People lived on cleaned-up pig food--that's how most of us 
     made it,'' she said.
       Lary, 40, decided to retrain as a nurse, thinking it was a 
     job with stability.
       He started at Grays Harbor College in spring 1991. But a 
     year later just as he was making progress, the rules changed 
     for awarding school grants and his money ran out. He finally 
     gave up.
       On his own, he found a job building and maintaining 
     guardrails on state highways in 1992. It paid the mortgage, 
     but kept him away from home for long periods. That job ended 
     this year, and he finally found a similar job in Alaska.
       The state lists him as successfully retrained, said Renee, 
     31.
       But the Lynches are selling their home and moving near 
     Anchorage, Alaska, to start over.
       Renee has little use for retraining programs or the 
     government that sponsored them.
       ``It's an absolute joke,'' she said, ``Try retraining a 
     Sioux Indian not to be a Sioux Indian. It can't be done.''
                                  ____


          Small-Time Logging Outfits Will Be Shut Out of Sales


  logging sales: operators say government ties their hands with bond 
                              requirements

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       A federal judge last month lifted a three-year court ban on 
     U.S. Forest Service timber sales along the Northwest coast, 
     but that won't set chain saws screeching anytime soon.
       That's because legal challenges and sale preparations must 
     come first.
       When the trees do go on the block, perhaps next year, few 
     of the small, often family-run logging businesses are likely 
     to benefit much, their operators say.
       The reason: The federal government thwarts its goal of 
     helping timber businesses by the scale of its timber 
     contracts and bond requirements.
       The federal government puts no ceiling on the size of its 
     timber sales but is trying to structure smaller contracts, 
     said Robert Rheiner, a Clinton administration forest 
     official.
       The government also is advertising logging sales of more 
     than $25,000 in local areas so smaller logging companies have 
     a chance at them, Rheiner said.
       But loggers claim that won't help them because they can't 
     come up with the 10 percent performance bond required by the 
     government to protect against improper job performance.
       ``When it's a big contract--$250,000 to $500,000--that's a 
     $25,000 to $50,000 bond,'' said Shari Brewer, a former 
     contract logger in Darrington. ``Small operators just don't 
     have it.''
       The government could do some simple things to open more 
     doors, loggers said.
       For example, they said, the government could:
       Set aside a percentage of contracts for small logging 
     operators, just as it does for businesses selling to the 
     government and for women- and minority-owned businesses.
       Put into escrow some of the money it plans to pay a 
     contractor (say, 15 percent of the contract's value), then 
     pay it out only as the work is approved.
       Raise the minimum amount of a contract at which operators 
     must pay prevailing union-level wages in the area in cases 
     involving a dislocated logger.
       Some of those changes would require action by Congress, 
     Rheiner said.
       Other steps within the power of the administration must 
     await its ``learning process,'' he said.
       Meanwhile, Rheiner said, ``It's just not going to be 
     possible to save everybody.''
                                  ____


        It Seemed Like They Promised You Everything at the Start

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Forks--Scott Haugen, 35, successfully started a second 
     career as a diesel mechanic after working as a logger all his 
     life.
       But he wouldn't have made it through a government 
     retraining program without the help of family and friends.
       In 1990, he signed up for a two-year diesel mechanic course 
     at Peninsula Community College.
       A state-funded training program promised him $2,000 for 
     tools, but he got closer to $500. He borrowed the rest of the 
     money from his dad to buy them.
       His unemployment benefits ran out during his program. His 
     family kicked in to keep him going.
       He needed a space to start the business. His best friend, 
     Dave Westerlund, provided it.
       And his wife has a good job as an administrative secretary 
     will the Quillayute Valley School District.
       ``It seemed like they promised you everything at the 
     start,'' Haugen said. ``As time went by, you because more of 
     a case number. I quit listening to them after awhile.''
       The best way to help out-of-work loggers is to put them 
     back in the woods where they belong, he said.
       ``How many people my age in Seattle stopped a well-paying 
     job they enjoyed, took two years out of their life and 
     started working another job--just to satisfy somebody else's 
     idea of what is right and wrong?'' he asked, referring to 
     those who want to protect the northern spotted owl.
       ``I miss logging, I really do. There was something about 
     it. What has happened is something like an excerpt form the 
     `Geraldo Rivera' show.''
                                  ____


                  I Have No Desire To Work And Be Poor


    a living wage: the college student will run out of unemployment 
                insurance before he completes his degree

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       Sequim--George Bernard Shaw Jr. points out where the big 
     trees used to stand as he strolls across the Peninsula 
     Community College campus. He knows because he cut down many 
     of them in his logging days.
       Shaw, 41, now lugs a book bag instead of a chain saw as he 
     seeks to replace his shattered, 25-year career as a timber 
     feller. It ended when he lost his last job in December, began 
     collecting $290 a week in unemployment benefits and enrolled 
     in school to seek a four-year environmental policy and 
     assessment degree offered through Peninsula by Western 
     Washington University's Huxley College.
       Shaw proved he knew how to study 19 years ago when he 
     earned a two-year associate degree in applied sciences at 
     Clatsop Community College. He still knows. Shaw's earned 
     almost straight A's at Peninsula.
       No matter. His re-education is becoming a tangled mess 
     because the government-organized retraining system is out of 
     sync.
       ``It's difficult to have an objective, and then they'll 
     take you only part way,'' he said.
       His first degree left him 30 credit hours shy of the 
     requirements to begin working toward the Huxley degree, which 
     he sees as a certain key to a steady living.
       But limited course offerings and enrollment pressures have 
     stretched out Shaw's preparation for the Huxley program. And 
     come September, when he'd like to begin it, only senior-level 
     courses will be offered, he said. That means waiting until 
     September 1995 for the junior-year courses to roll around.
       In the meantime, Shaw said, the government allows him only 
     18 months of unemployment benefits, which run out this 
     summer. Without that money, Shaw said, he can't pay his bills 
     without leaving school and building up some on-the-job hours 
     to qualify for more unemployment benefits.
       As the prospect of his environmental degree stretches out, 
     Shaw may help his wife, Dorothy, 43, make earrings and 
     Christmas ornaments. That $2,000-a-year enterprise ``is 
     something we can fall back on.'' He also can pick up about 
     $1,500 a year trimming trees and is looking for some work 
     with his back hoe.
       ``It's difficult to see what we're going to have to do to 
     generate a living wage,'' Shaw said. ``I have no desire to 
     work and be poor. I'm not that noble.''
                                  ____


                   Broken Promise: Family Still Waits


  Coping: The president vowed to put Walter Bailey of Hayfork back to 
 work. That hasn't happened. And a plan to put hundreds of townspeople 
                 to work is stymied by a federal holdup

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Hayfork, Calif.--More than a year ago on national 
     television, President Clinton promised to put logger Walter 
     Bailey back to work.
       The family still is waiting for Clinton to make good on 
     that pledge.
       Bailey, 46, no longer has a steady job in the industry 
     where he worked since he was 24. The timber-falling business 
     he and his wife, Nadine, started in 1985 is gone.
       It once employed 15 people with an annual payroll of 
     $360,000.
       The Baileys may lose property that has been in the family 
     for three generations.
       ``This is our government, and I just can't believe our 
     government is going to do this to us,'' Nadine Bailey said.
       But in February 1993, the couple had hope.
       Their 11-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, had written a letter 
     to a logging magazine and was invited to an ABC show, 
     ``President Clinton Answering Children's Questions,'' 
     televised live from the White House.
       Elizabeth stood up and faced Clinton. Using her school 
     yearbook, she underlined the number of kids affected by 
     government and court actions to curb logging--140 students--
     about 70 percent of the school.
       ``She told him of all her friends' fathers who were going 
     to lose their jobs, mothers who weren't at home for them any 
     more, fathers who had to work miles and miles away,'' Nadine 
     Bailey said. ``That was how she saw it. It was pretty stark. 
     It's not numbers. It's people.''
       Clinton told Elizabeth he agreed some places could be 
     logged, but said some places also needed protection.
       The promise he made then was to keep ``a significant number 
     of people working in the woods,'' a ``stable logging 
     industry,'' and ``large numbers of people working and still 
     save the owls.''
       The next month, Nadine Bailey was invited to take a spot on 
     a panel at Clinton and Vice President Al Gore's timber summit 
     in Portland, Ore.
       The administration called the national meeting to discuss 
     possible solutions to the timber industry shutdown caused by 
     court injunctions to halt logging to protect the northern 
     spotted owl.
       Bailey, 37, returned home with a mission.
       ``We were ready to do anything we could to make this plan 
     work,'' she said.
       Hayfork, a 3,500-resident dot in the Sierra Nevada between 
     Redding and Eureka, has been a logging community since the 
     1920s. It started out as an agricultural community, then 
     slowly switched. But controversy over the spotted owl and the 
     resulting logging slowdown in Northern California's Trinity 
     National Forest had rocked the town.
       Bailey decided to find a way to preserve both the town's 
     livelihood and the surrounding forest land. That meant 
     joining forces with the other side--Hayfork environmentalist 
     Joseph Bower.
       They and a handful of others in the community met daily for 
     almost two months. Their plain; fireproof the forests and 
     replant trees.
       They would cut small trees on 40,000 acres in Tinity 
     National Forest. The trees posed a potential fire danger if 
     not thinned.
       They plan also would put people to work maintaining the 
     3,500 miles of logging roads in the national forest. Dirt 
     from the roads was washing into rivers and streams, spoiling 
     fish habitat.
       ``Our plan would put 500 people to work for the next 20 
     years,'' Bower said.
       It also would eliminate the need for new logger retraining 
     programs, he and Bailey said.
       But their idea remains in limbo. They tried to sell it to 
     the Clinton administration, but U.S. Forest Service officials 
     said they don't have the money.
       The problem is that the plan requires moving money from one 
     bureaucracy to another, and that's disallowed by federal law, 
     said John Veevaert, assistant district ranger for the Forest 
     Service in Hayfork.
       Money intended to help fish, for example, can't go to fix 
     logging roads. ``Congress has to catch up,'' he said.
       He believes a version of Bailey and Bower's proposal can 
     work and urged them to keep working despite the ponderous 
     bureaucracy.
       ``What they are striving for is exactly what we want,'' 
     Veevaert said.
       The experience has outraged Baily nonetheless.
       ``I think the population of Hayfork has increased 10 
     percent since people learned that all this federal grant 
     money was available,'' she said. ``We've got consultants 
     writing grants for almost everything, mostly studies. If I 
     read one more grant proposal for a feasibility study, I think 
     I'll throw up.
       ``My personal favorite was a proposal for $20 million to 
     build a major movie studio in Hayfork--$10 million for the 
     property and $10 million for the studio. For $20 million, you 
     could have the whole town of Hayfork and get me thrown in for 
     the bargain.''
       Now, Bailey calls the Clinton plan a ``smoke-and-mirrors-
     type solution that has everybody fooled.''
       She no longer trusts Clinton, Gore or Tom Tuchmann, the 
     administration's timber czar who came to Ukiah in Northern 
     California last spring and tried to convince residents that 
     the president's plan is working.
       At the meeting, Bailey disputed his contention.
       Tuchmann has said the administration is doing all it can to 
     work out solutions so people in timber communities can find 
     work again. It's beginning to work, he said, though much 
     remains to be done.
       But Bailey wants Clinton to follow through on his promise. 
     Her husband is doing a logging job on the ranch of a friend, 
     but it runs out in a couple of months.
       ``Elizabeth said the other day, It will be a while before I 
     trust again,''' she said.
                                  ____


          Ex-Millworker Must Choose Between School or Survival

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Portland, OR.--Kevin Browning, 28, lost more than his job 
     at the Roseburg, Ore., mill in 1992.
       The upheaval that followed included a split with his wife, 
     a plunge in self-esteem and a lost sense of direction.
       He thought he was back on track, getting retrained to open 
     a business that could hire other displaced timber workers.
       He began attending Umpqua Community College, earning a 3.85 
     grade-point average in business administration.
       But in May, he testified at a congressional hearing on 
     retraining that his future was in jeopardy.
       ``Unfortunately, all my dreams and hard work may come to 
     naught,'' he told U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore.
       ``The funds that have kept a roof over my head and food on 
     my table are running out. I have only about six weeks of 
     unemployment insurance and still another year of my education 
     to go.
       ``This places me in an extremely awkward situation--whether 
     to keep a roof over my head and food on my table or complete 
     my education.
       ``While my situation is dramatic, I do not feel it is 
     unique.
       ``In recent weeks, I have seen many of my fellow students 
     lament over having to make the same decision. Unfortunately, 
     most are forced to pick survival over their education. And 
     some will be forced to return to the industry which spawned 
     their unemployment in the first place.
       ``This prospect truly saddens me.
       ``I feel that the sociological repercussions of this 
     emotional roller coaster will be devastating, encompassing 
     everything from a rise in domestic violence to drug abuse and 
     education.''
                                  ____


           Loggers Say New Timber Plans Have No Magic Formula


  common sense? studies and consultants seem all the craze, but many 
          logging families feel it's all bureaucratic bluster

                  (By Bob Partlow and Trask Tapperson)

       When government officials want to help timber workers and 
     their communities, they go to study hall.
       And they usually take a consultant with them.
       Consultant Eric Hovee, who did five community studies in 
     Washington and two dozen or more in Oregon said ``there's not 
     a lot of magic'' in the studies. But Washington did 135 the 
     past half decade.
       Consultants typically take the pulse of the community, hold 
     a meeting or two, then issue a report. Much of what they 
     recommend is ``common sense,'' Hovee said, but the report 
     helps focus the community.
       ``Yuppie bonding,'' Forks logger Colin King said of a 
     community meeting he attended in Port Angeles.
       He and others find little value in the studies, consultants 
     or timber conferences done by those in government or private 
     business who want to redirect loggers into other occupations.
       ``They want to make them eco-slaves,'' said Sarah Smyth of 
     Olympia, whose family owns a sawmill between Olympia and 
     Shelton. She was referring to temporary jobs in the woods the 
     government is offering some workers.
       In addition to studies and consultants, timber workers and 
     their towns also get a healthy dose of self-esteem tapes and 
     motivational programs such as New Chance at Grays Harbor 
     College.
       Supporters say workers need such a psychological boost. But 
     others, such as Forks logger-turned-diesel-mechanic Scott 
     Haugen, think the only boost timber workers need is to get 
     back in the woods.
                                  ____


       Is Timber Money Being Wasted on Silly Games at Conferences


 Accountability question: Some participants of a government-sponsored 
meeting were insulted by the children's games; others liked the seminar

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Ellensburg.--Porridge in the pot! Porridge in the pot!
       Jelly in the jar! Jelly in the jar!
       About 60 men and women lined the walls of a conference room 
     at Central Washington University and intoned the childhood 
     chant--first loudly, then softly.
       It was the second day of a three-day Timber Communities 
     Conference in April. Nine state employees staffed it.
       The seminar was billed as a way to help timber communities 
     cope with financial hardship, but not a calk boot or hickory 
     shirt was in sight.
       The public employees and consultants who dominated the 
     conference played games with plastic mice, flew paper 
     airplanes and made luggage tags out of business cards--all in 
     the name of revitalizing economically depressed timber towns.
       They also listened to speeches from people familiar with 
     economic development, held a mock townhall meeting in the 
     format of the ``Phil Donahue'' show and tried to revitalize a 
     fictional town called Stump Hollow.


                              THE PURPOSE

       The conference was the brain-child of the state Department 
     of Community, Trade and Economic Development and the U.S. 
     Forest Service.
       Apart from the games was a ``core curriculum'' to show 
     people how to redirect their economies, said Maury Forman, 
     the department's training coordinator.
       That include tips on starting and expanding business and 
     how to attract new enterprises.
       ``We teach all elements of economic and community 
     development, and we try to teach through interactive learning 
     and exercises,'' Forman said.
       Grace Hathaway, Darrington's city planner, sat in the 
     middle of the room while most of the others sung the porridge 
     chant.
       ``I think it was an insult,'' Hathaway said. ``This group 
     thought they were dealing with a bunch of provincial, 
     unsophisticated ignoramuses.''
       Joby Winans, a department trainer, called the chanting ``an 
     energizer'' to wake people from their midafternoon doldrums, 
     but Hathaway call the activity ``ridiculous. We'd just had a 
     break.''
       Hathaway got fed up with the porridge and jam and with so-
     called ``ice breakers'' the night before at the conference.
       The group was divided by the different colors of plastic 
     mice they received at the start, as well as by hair color, 
     shoe color and shoe style, she said.
       They flew planes and went on a scavenger hunt--looking for 
     an oak leaf, foreign coin and feather, among other items.
       The next day, conference leaders passed out water pistols 
     to members of the audience to shoot at speakers if they went 
     overtime.
       Winans said her colleagues asked her to come up with ways 
     to bring people together.
       ``The conference was built around sharing information from 
     experts...and from communities because they've tried to 
     develop some ways and found things that worked and didn't 
     work,'' she said.
       The $12,114.76 spend on the conference should have gone 
     somewhere else, Hathaway said.
       ``Take all the salaries these people are making to put 
     these things on and you could pay for several timber workers 
     for a year instead of making paper airplanes or putting 
     porridge in the pot,'' she said. ``I have a lot of problem 
     seeing where the money is going. We've gone way past the 
     realm of reality.''


                            Out of context?

       Michele Brown, unit manager for local development 
     assistance with the department, said the games should be put 
     in context.
       But measuring the success of economic development work such 
     as the Ellensburg gathering is difficult to do.
       Forman runs similar conferences in which he uses 
     educational games based on ``Wheel of Fortune,'' `` 
     Jeopardy!'' and ``The Dating Game.''
       ``I know how this is going to look in the paper,'' he said 
     of using ``The Dating Game'' format. ``But it really works.''
       He has letters from people who say such conference training 
     helped their communities keep or attract business.
       Micki Colwell, executive director of the Hoquiam 
     Development Association, attended the Ellensburg meeting to 
     make contacts.
       ``It's a good way to meet people in other towns,'' she 
     said, ``and, of course, you get to know state people, which 
     is important when you submit grants.''
       The success of economic development studies also is tough 
     to gauge.
       In the past five years, 135 such studies have been done in 
     Washington, but the state has done little follow-up.
       Although the state pays for many of the studies, ``the 
     accountability really rests with the counties,'' Brown said. 
     ``They are asking for them.''
       Neither she nor Forman could estimate how many jobs are 
     created by economic development activities.
       ``It's messy, it's long-term and it doesn't get you from 
     Point A to Point B very quickly,'' Brown said.


                            conference costs

       The State Department of Community, Trade and Economic 
     Development provided this accounting of costs for the Timber 
     Communities Conference:


                           what money came in

       $5,110.76 from timber funds. Department officials didn't 
     elaborate.
       $2,000 from the U.S. Forest Service.
       $5,004 from registration fees. The fees ranged from $75 for 
     community participants such as consultants and economic 
     development officials to $150 for state and federal 
     employees.


                          where the money went

       $8,461--room and board.
       $800--speaker fees.
       $1,200--conference handouts.
       $264--conference brochures and notebooks.
                                  ____


               Timber Workers Offered New Change Program


education: a program official cites success stories but has no numbers 
                          to back up the claim

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Aberdeen--What kind of chance do timber workers have to 
     rebuild their lives?
       A ``New Chance,'' if a motivational program by that name 
     works as touted.
       During the past two years, the program at Grays Harbor 
     College has put 504 students through a six-week course to 
     help prepare them for further career training and education, 
     said co-coach Cleo Norris.
       ``We have some really good success stories,'' Norris said.
       But Roger Reidel calls it the ``Last Chance'' program.
       ``It makes people feel better while they're standing in the 
     unemployment line,'' scoffed Reidel, a laid-off millworker 
     who now helps other displaced timber workers for the 
     Washington State Labor Council, the umbrella association for 
     the state's labor unions.
       The project isn't a retraining program, but a ``career 
     assessment'' designed to help timber workers take their first 
     steps into a new future.
       It helps them with basic reading, writing and math skills, 
     gives them some computer training and runs them through a 
     rigorous one-day obstacle course on the Wynoochee River.
       The course includes the ``pamper pole''--a 21-foot rope 
     that participants climb. Once they reach the top, they jump 
     onto a net.
       ``It teaches teamwork and builds trust,'' Norris said. ``We 
     spend all day up there bonding. They become family. They meld 
     together.''
       Norris said the program is a success but project officials 
     don't have any statistics yet to back up the claim. They hope 
     to get some during a survey of all graduates.
       Norris believes a majority of their graduates are attending 
     school. The ones she knows about--she didn't have any 
     specific numbers--have a grade-point average of 3.23.
       Some public officials point to New Chance graduation 
     ceremonies as inspirational, a sign that retraining has its 
     bright spots.
       A good attitude is important, said Dan Wood of The Umbrella 
     Group, a coalition of organizations focusing on land-use and 
     property-rights issues. It also advocates opening forests to 
     more logging.
       But people need jobs, Wood said.
       ``Hope without income isn't going to last,'' he said. ``You 
     raise people's hopes, and they are going to crash down again. 
     And it's going to be worse than the first time. They get 
     self-esteem and positive thinking. They have a good time in 
     class. Students tell people they are great. They got a B for 
     the first time in their life or spoke in front of a class.
       ``I've attended those graduations. I'm sitting in the 
     audience saying, `Great, but where are the jobs?' When the 
     excitement is gone, how will it feed your family?''
       The Hoquiam Development Association, a private agency that 
     gets some public money to develop Hoquiam's economy, also has 
     a self-esteem program.
       The association paid the final $3,200 on a $40,000 set of 
     motivational tapes from the Seattle-based Pacific Institute. 
     Private money paid the rest of the cost.
       The tapes give people a sense of worth and help lift their 
     spirits so they can move forward, said association Executive 
     Director Micki Colwell.
       Jim Coates, who distributes food to 28 food banks in Grays 
     Harbor and Pacific counties, remembers when the ITT Rayonier 
     Inc. mill closed in November 1992, putting more than 600 
     people out of work. The mill has partially reopened and 
     employs about 230 people.
       After the mill shutdown, ``my phone was ringing off the 
     hook with consultants and other people wanting to sell me 
     computer programs, motivational tapes, one thing or 
     another,'' Coates said.
       ``That kind of thing is sickening. Everybody was looking to 
     make a fast buck. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.''
       ``Everybody talks about bringing up esteem. (But you) put 
     them through school and they can't find a job. Is their 
     esteem lower than it would have been'' Coates asked. ``You 
     bet it is.''
                                  ____


            Retrained Timber Worker Once Again Without Work

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Deming.--A state report listed only one man successfully 
     retrained in Whatcom County under its ``Dislocated Timber 
     Worker and Employment Training Program'' from mid-1991 to 
     mid-1993.
       Cost: $12,144.
       The state Employment Security Department--which ran the 
     program--took 3\1/2\ weeks to track the worker down when 
     asked to supply his name: Philip King, 27, of Deming.
       But today, King is out of work.
       He first lost his job with Baker Bay Logging in Whatcom 
     County in late 1989 because of logging cutbacks to protect 
     spotted-owl habitat, he said. He spent a few months looking 
     for another logging job but couldn't find one.
       The state offered him a year of education, but he turned it 
     down because he thought he needed more time to learn a new 
     trade. So, the state offered retraining through the 
     Department of Natural Resources, promising him some work in 
     the woods marking trees for sale while teaching him some 
     computer skills.
       King marked trees for six months, received almost no 
     computer training and talked his way into three more months 
     of work fighting fires for the state.
       His salary dropped from $13.75 an hour as a logger to $5.50 
     an hour working for the state. Then it dropped to zero when 
     the job ran out in 1990.
       He went back to the state for help but was denied further 
     training, he said.
       ```We don't have to think about you any more--we're through 
     with you,' that's my impression of the program,'' King said.
       He has gotten a couple of other jobs since then but injured 
     himself on the last one and is out of work and fighting for 
     unemployment benefits.
                                  ____


                   State Takes the Credit for Carver


 Dennis Chastain: The wood carver says the help on a loan was a fluke 
                and not the only reason he's in business

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Forks--After Dennis Chastain, 52, began carving out a new 
     life for himself, the state began taking credit for it.
       A 1992 issue of Timber Towns, a now-defunct newspaper put 
     out by the state, touted Dennis and his wife, Margaret, as a 
     success story of timber retraining.
       The couple received a loan through a private revolving 
     fund. The fund's administrators work closely with the state 
     to help small businesses.
       Chastain worked in the woods for 24 years before his last 
     logging job on the Olympic Peninsula dried up six years ago. 
     Margaret Chastain saw some chain-saw wood carvings she liked, 
     and Dennis thought, ``I can do that.''
       He was right.
       He began chain-saw carving regularly and now has produced 
     thousands of pieces, including a 12-foot-tall carving for a 
     logger's memorial next to the visitor center in Forks.``I 
     found I had some talent and ability,'' he said.
       Along the way, Chastain was looking for about $12,000 to 
     help expand the business. The revolving fund provided it, but 
     Chastain said it wasn't an essential ingredient to making a 
     success of Den's Wood Den on state Highway 101 south of 
     Forks.
       ``If it hadn't been them, it would have been somebody 
     else,'' he said. ``They popped up exactly when I needed them. 
     It was a fluke.''
       He got a 12 percent loan, a figure that surprised him when 
     he went to sign the papers.
       ``They strongly implied it would be a low-interest loan,'' 
     he said.
       But the state took credit for it in its newspaper article. 
     Chastain, now making about $30,000 a year, said it's not 
     quite what they say.
       ``I'm not going to come in on them, but I'm not going to 
     brag on them, either.''

            Conferences Held for Timber Towns: It Was A Joke


small-business help: workshops were held in washington cities with few 
                           timber connections

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       Darrington--The state paid Washington newcomer M. Kathleen 
     Duttro to arrange 10 small-business workshops, though she had 
     no training or experience to perform the work.
       Duttro said she received $2,500 ``because that was the 
     maximum they could pay for a non-bid program'' awarded by the 
     state without competition.
       Her payment came out of general state training money, but 
     Duttro viewed her work as part of the state's effort to help 
     timber families and their communities get or stay on their 
     feet.
       Duttro acknowledged she had no background dealing with 
     either.
       She did her first workshops in Darrington about a year ago; 
     within six months after moving from York County, Penn., to 
     settle on a 24-acre spread near the foot of Whitehorse 
     Mountain outside Darrington.
       She called the sessions ``Bootstrap Businesses and 
     Tourism'' and a ``Home-based Business Workshop.'' She charged 
     residents of the struggling timber-based community a ``cut-
     rate price'' of $10 to $15 for the two sessions--below the 
     $25 admission charged others for the one-day sessions, Duttro 
     said.
       At state's behest, Duttro took her workshops on the road 
     from September through April, but at least four of the areas 
     and their residents had little or nothing to do with timber. 
     They included Pullman and Walla Walla in Washington's wheat 
     belt; Olympia; and Island County, home to a U.S. Navy air 
     station, bedroom communities and farms.
       She said she had no follow-up system to check how trainees 
     benefited from her teaching--except for surveys at the end of 
     the workshops that indicated people wanted more conferences.
       Richard Anderson, who runs Sauk River Sporting Goods in 
     Darrington, paid $20 last year to attend a Duttro course.
       It led him to offer a fly-fishing clinic in June. It netted 
     him $60, he said.
       Grace Hathaway, Darrington's city planner, said Duttro's 
     workshop on creating home-based businesses apparently had few 
     results.
       ``I know there were none created in Darrington,'' said 
     Hathaway, who prepares and helps administer the city's grant 
     requests for timber community assistance. ``It was a joke.''
       Maury Forman, the state official who hired Duttro, 
     acknowledged the absence of accountability. He said it's up 
     to the people to make connections with economic development 
     promoters to get help after the workshops.
       Duttor's arrangement with the state for workshops ended 
     last year, but now she's applying for more grant-financed 
     work this fall with the formation of a nonprofit organization 
     called Threshhold.
       ``I decided to invent myself a job,'' Duttro said.
       ``If I get my nonprofit running, I will have invested 
     myself a job. We've written a proposal for a program. We're 
     looking for money to start it.''
       She said she wants a dependable source of cash because the 
     financially shaky people of timber towns are an unreliable 
     source of income.
       ``It's almost impossible to do it on the backs of the 
     people who need it and make a living out of it,'' Duttro 
     said.
                                  ____


             Course Funded by State Angers Displaced Worker


 College course: The class was designed to give displaced workers self-
                                 esteem

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       Elvira, Ore.--Danele Welsh has worked in four wood mills 
     for more the 13 years.
       She graduated through the ranks from hydraulic log loader 
     in a sawmill to plant forewoman of a specialty products plant 
     to inventory controller at a Eugene, Ore., mill of forest 
     products giant Weyerhaeuser Co.
       That ended in 1991, when the mill closed and Welsh sought 
     help to regain employment through a course at Lane Community 
     College. She attended the decade-old Choices and Options 
     program for displaced timber workers, financed with state 
     lottery money.
       Welsh, 42, wanted practical job-search guidance. But 
     mostly, she and about 25 men got a steady dose of self-esteem 
     promotions--daily inspirational readings from the writings of 
     humorist Robert Fulghum, getting-to-know-you games.
       Her tolerance waned on the first day of the two-week course 
     when the instructor said, ``we needed to evolve beyond the 
     timber industry. Evolve.''
       ``He thought we were stupid millworkers, primate material. 
     Like we needed to evolve,'' she said.
       Welsh rose to her feet. ``I was going to scratch my sides, 
     like an ape.'' Instead all she could muster were the words; 
     ``How dare you!''
       College officials defended the program. ``When they lose 
     their jobs, they're angry,'' said staff member John Huberd. 
     ``It helps get their head back on straight . . . boost self-
     esteem. The members start bonding and become a support 
     group.''
       Welch has had only one paying job since, and that business 
     folded. But she said she won't become ``a system sucker,'' 
     her term for people who continue in government-run displaced 
     worker programs.
       ``Why don't they just bundle up their assets, go out there 
     and take their best shot?'' she asked.
                                  ____


           Nonprofit Corporation's Aim is to Help Create Jobs


  port angeles: the director says the corporation will transform the 
                                economy

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       Port Angeles--Dominating the walls of Gus Kostopulos's 
     office at WoodNet headquarters are three photos and two 
     signed letters from President Clinton.
       That's in sharp contrast with the contempt that often 
     greets the mention of Clinton's name in logging towns on the 
     Olympic Peninsula.
       The president spoke enthusiastically to Kostopulos at his 
     timber summit in Portland, Ore., last year. The executive 
     director of the 3-year-old nonprofit corporation had just 
     explained to Clinton how WoodNet would help transform the 
     peninsula's floundering timber-based economy.
       WoodNet's goal: linking its 350 members to wholesalers and 
     others who might buy their products, ranging from custom 
     doorknobs and other specialty wood products to jewelry and 
     other non-wood adornments.
       His means: primarily a slick catalog. The first one, sent 
     last year to 8,500 wholesale buyers, cost $62,500 in cash and 
     another $30,000 in staff time to produce. Of that, $22,500 
     came from the product ads placed by craftspeople and 
     companies.
       That's almost $11 per recipient, plus postage.
       Since 1991, the state has sunk $206,000 into the operations 
     of WoodNet, a frequent object of glowing publicity for its 
     innovative manufacturing network. Much of that money came 
     from the two departments most responsible for helping timber 
     workers and their towns recover.
       Yet Kostopulos says he doesn't know--or care--how many of 
     the 92 sellers in the catalog are displaced loggers.
       ``They weren't asked,'' he said. ``I personally don't care 
     how many displaced loggers work at Posey Manufacturing. 
     WoodNet was never set up to help displaced loggers. We want 
     to help a company that creates jobs.''
                                  ____


   Timber Money traced to Several Studies Done for Washington Cities


  Accountability issue: The state tracked only 12 of 135 studies done 
                       during the past five years

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       A close look at the government response to the region's 
     timber woes appears to show more about consultants and 
     studies than loggers and jobs.
       Taxpayers paid for 135 timber-related studies or plans in 
     Washington alone from 1989 to mid-1994, according to figures 
     from the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic 
     Development.
       The Olympian and The Bellingham Herald asked state 
     governments in Washington, Oregon and Northern California for 
     a detailed accounting of the studies and their success.
       Washington sent incomplete information, and Oregon and 
     California didn't respond to the request.
       Among the Washington studies were 12 surveys to assess the 
     so-called ``SWOT'' of rural timber communities: strengths, 
     weaknesses, opportunities and threats
       Those studies cost $96,306, an average of $8,025,50 apiece. 
     The state didn't say how much good they did or exactly how 
     the communities spent the money.
       Consultants interviewed people, held meetings in 
     communities affected by timber cutbacks and then did reports.
       Darrington had a $12,000 SWOT study done.
       It duplicated a separate study done by the city and was a 
     waste of money, said Darrington hardware store owner Laurence 
     Larsen, who is active on state boards involved in helping 
     timber communities and workers.
       ``We could go out and get money for studies, but we won't 
     finance a business or get somebody started,'' Larsen said.
       The city of Sultan had a different experience. Its SWOT 
     study pointed out a good direction and was widely 
     distributed, said City Clerk Laura Koenig. ``We had a lot of 
     interest in it,'' she said.
       Eric Hovee, principal of the Vancouver, Wash.-based E.D. 
     Hovee & Associates, did five SWOT studies in Washington for 
     $40,300. He estimates he has done up to 30 similar studies in 
     Oregon.
       ``A lot of it is often common sense,'' he said. ``There's 
     not a lot of magic to it.''
       The surveys are only as good as the people in the 
     communities make them, he said.
       ``The study doesn't produce any jobs, but the follow-up is 
     where there is going to be job creation,'' he said. ``That's 
     where the value comes in. The extent to which these studies 
     are used or sit on a shelf . . . depends on the people in the 
     community.''
       Hovee said he does no follow-up.
       In Washington's other 123 studies, money went to local 
     agencies and the state doesn't monitor what happens after 
     that, said Liz Mendizabal, spokeswoman for the Department of 
     Community, Trade and Economic Development.
       Forks had two studies done--one for $12,500 in 1991 to look 
     at the city's future and another for $20,000 in 1992 to look 
     at timber supply.
       At the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsular, Forks has 
     been the self-styled ``Timber Capital of the World'' until 
     the virtual shutdown of the woods in the 1990s.
       In the first study, ``almost all of it was stuff we already 
     knew and many of the statistics were way out of line,'' said 
     Sandra Kint, Forks economic development director. ``I don't 
     think anybody was happy with the results.''
       In the second study, ``it gave us a lot of information in 
     writing signed by a consultant that told us what we already 
     knew,'' said Dan Lienan, Forks city clerk and treasurer.
       In addition to the studies, the state had handed out 138 
     grants to timber communities since 1989, according to the 
     Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development. It 
     didn't provide a dollar figure.
       One $20,000 grant went to the Hoquiam Development 
     Association, which receives some public money to help boost 
     the local economy.
       But Executive Director Micki Colwell said the money 
     ``didn't create any jobs, except for mine.'' The 
     communications graduate and former reporter moved from part 
     time to full time.


                      the forks study at a glance

       The first Forks community study, done by Gilmore Research 
     Group of Seattle, said: ``Forks is encouraged to create both 
     short- and long-term economic strategies as part of its work 
     program.''
       It recommended ``short-term priorities'' such as:
       ``The implementation of strategies which respond to the 
     nature of the existing market, both from internal and 
     competitive standpoints.''
       ``The implementation of strategies which better position 
     Forks for future growth.''
       ``The implementation of strategies which create a series of 
     small business successes, for example, the expansion of an 
     existing business or the opening of a new business with five 
     or 10 jobs.''
       The 107-page study also spent considerable space talking 
     about building Forks' image and promoting tourism.
                                  ____


           Communities See Hope as They Turn Away From Timber


  Rays of light; Many in timber towns are moving on, finding security 
                         outside of the forest

                  (By Trask Tapperson and Bob Partlow)

       In the darkness of the Northwest's timber towns, some rays 
     of light can be found:
       In the persistence of Richard Anderson, who has moved into 
     his Darrington sporting-goods store and is selling tourists 
     everything from vibrating monkeys to fly-fishing lessons in a 
     last-ditch effort to keep the struggling business open.
       In the doggedness of people such as Jack Shipley of Grants 
     Pass, Ore., Mike Jackson of Quincy, Calif., and Nadine Bailey 
     of Hayfork, Calif.
       They are putting aside deep differences with opponents to 
     force agreements that will provide loggers with jobs and the 
     forest with a chance to grow in a new and different way.
       In the new chances being given to people in Prineville, 
     Ore. They are taking advantage of an opportunity to start 
     again in plants making wood products through a retraining 
     program started by businesses.
       They all agree the problems are daunting and the future 
     uncertain at best, but they are trying to create a new life 
     out of a new economy.
       ``We're going to get through this thing,'' said Shipley, a 
     founder of The Applegate Partnership in Oregon, which hopes 
     to create jobs and a new kind of forest. ``It's going to be a 
     major, uphill battle.''
                                  ____


    A Town Tied to Timber Industry is Forced into a new Way of Life


                               Community

       ``Darrington's got a wonderful future. It's just how soon 
     it's going to get here,'' says Richard Anderson, a small-
     business owner.

                  (By Trask Tapperson and Bob Partlow)

       Darrington--Travelers will find the drive easier between 
     Interstate 5 and this timber town after September when crews 
     finish $2.5 million in improvements to Highway 530 East.
       People here wonder what the traffic will bring.
       Until recently, it was predictable: Scores of log trucks 
     hauling out the bounty of the federal forest, a smattering of 
     tourists bound for the mountains and residents with business 
     ``down below'' in Everett, the lowland Snohomish County seat.
       But in Darrington today almost nothing is predictable as 
     the town undergoes wrenching change wrought by the virtual 
     end to logging in the midsection of the Mount Baker-
     Snoqualmie National Forest.
       In the future, many expect commuters to make up most of the 
     new traffic; locals heading to Everett for new jobs and 
     urbanites who find the trip to Everett and Seattle preferable 
     to the hassles of big-city life.


                            signs of decline

       Some telling signs of Darrington's decline:
       Worried timber wives sharring family crises at the 
     ``Kitchen Talk'' program at the Darrington Community Support 
     and Resource Center.
       ``A lot of it is fear,'' said center director Wyonne 
     Perrault. ``If you're born and raised here, there's a fear of 
     losing this closeknit, family-oriented community and thinking 
     of trying to make it somewhere else.''
       She cited one longtime Darrington family who lost their 
     house to the bank by foreclosure last spring. Mom, Dad and 
     the kids left town in the dead of night because they couldn't 
     face their friends and neighbors, she said.
       A 300 percent increase in visits at the Darrington Food 
     Bank since 1986.
       But even the threefold jump doesn't reflect the extent of 
     hardship today, food bank managers said. ``In an area like 
     this, people won't ask for help unless they're really 
     desperate,'' Geraldine Inman said as she handed out 
     commodities behind a counter. Above it, a sign reminds 
     volunteers: ``We are serving people at this food bank, many 
     of whom are hurting, angry or frustrated. This is often 
     through no fault of their own.''
       A building that doubles as Richard Anderson's home and his 
     Sauk River Sporting Goods store. He lives at the store now 
     after selling his house and spending the proceeds to keep his 
     business going.
       ``Darrington's got a wonderful future,'' Anderson said. 
     ``It's just how soon it's going to get here.''
       In the meantime, he has started hawking trinkets such as 
     vibrating monkey and T-shirts for tourists.
       But they aren't coming. And when they do, they don't bite.
       ``We had 79 (river) rafters in the store,'' Anderson said. 
     ``They drank free coffee, messed up the septic tank with 
     Styrofoam popcorn and spent $6.''
       He's now thinking of renting out hot tubs.
       Andy Thompson, who manages the Highway 530 construction 
     from an Everett office, sums up the town's dilemma with the 
     succinctness of a knowledgeable outsider.
       ``If they don't figure out a way to adapt, they're going to 
     get pushed right out of there,'' he said.


                         darrington at a glance

       Location: Eastern Snohomish County
       Population: About 1,000
       Rank in county: Third smallest (ahead of Woodway and Index)
       Projected growth rate: 45 percent through 2020 (compared 
     with county rate of 77 percent)
       Predominant Industry: Timber
       Larget employer: Summit Timber Co. (350 employees)
       Median household income, 1979: $17,226 (compared with 
     $20,760 countywide)
       Median household income, 10 years later: $24,294 (compared 
     with $29,369 countywide)
       Housing construction, 1980-88: 101, including 37 mobile 
     homes (of 46,335 homes built countywide)
       Average price of house (1988): $56,422 (compared with 
     $93,864 countywide)
       Almost everyone in Darrington knows that. But the 
     uncertainty over how to change generates sometimes intense 
     second-guessing and bickering.
       The closest thing to consensus is criticism of the 
     government's response to their eroding lifestyle. Many 
     residents say state and federal governments have spent too 
     much on the wrong things, such as:
       Planning sewers, industrial parks, and other expensive 
     infrastructure without any clear hope for a return on the 
     investment.
       Touting tourism for visitors who may never come or bring 
     enough money to even begin replacing lost timber dollars that 
     yielded family-level wages.
       Government officials push this alternative the hardest, 
     seeing a potential in scenic forest and mountain settings of 
     many timber towns. Few have more spectacular vistas than the 
     Darrington area--with its views of Whitehorse, Gold Hill, 
     Prairie, Higgins and North mountains and the stunning Glacier 
     Peak.
       Though Darrington did receive a small share of the federal 
     government's $20 million ``Jobs in the Woods'' program, 
     assessments by key local leaders are harsh.
       ``They spread all this money around a mile wide and an inch 
     deep. It doesn't do any good, but it does have political 
     benefit,'' said hardware store owner Laurence Larsen, 
     Darrington's top civic leader for economic revitalization.
       ``It's just a great big wheel, and we're getting caught in 
     the spokes,'' said Mayor Charlie White.
       The state and federal timber relief program is ``a support 
     system for the state and federal agencies, not for the timber 
     communities which it was intended to help,'' said city 
     planner Grace Hathaway. ``There's no accountability about 
     who's giving money to whom.''


                           effort criticized

       A frequent target of townfolks' frustrations is the three-
     year economic development effort led by Kathy Kerkvliet, a 
     state Employment Security Department worker.
       She became Darrington's grant-funded economic development 
     official in 1990, several months after a Larsen-led citizens 
     committee completed a 20-year vision for the town.
       ``There was a fair amount of criticism'' of that nine-month 
     effort, Larsen said. ``They were concerned we were spending 
     money on tourism and not enough on displaced workers. 
     Unfortunately, a lot of the programs from the state were for 
     studies, but we couldn't finance a business.''
       By the time Kerkvliet left a year ago, $105,400 had been 
     spent on salaries and overhead for her effort--part of about 
     $405,000 in government grants she said the community 
     received.
       ``I went in there as a novice,'' Kerkvliet said. ``I knew 
     how to work with dislocated workers, but I had never done 
     economic development.''
       Although the problems of the timber workers are worsening, 
     Kerkvliet said she left because ``I was an outsider. I 
     understood my role to get resources and bring people in, but 
     after awhile you can only have outside help for so long.''
       What did the taxpayers get for their money?
       Already in hand: Lots of grants, studies, workshops and 
     publications.
       Yet to come: The new sewers, hopes for new industry at a 
     possible industrial park, more tourists and possible new 
     restrooms to accommodate them--which the government is 
     willing to build if the community can pay to maintain them.
       Kerkvliet is long on enthusiasm but short on specifics of 
     how the town has repositioned for life after timber. She 
     can't cite any jobs resulting from her economic development 
     efforts.
       Her prediction: ``In five years, it will stay a nice, lazy, 
     laid-back little town--more of a bedroom community. People 
     are willing to travel to have that environment to live in.''
       White's vision for the resident logging families isn't so 
     rosy.
       White, 80, recalled his life in the woods that began at age 
     14 with a job as a signal-whistle blower and lasted through 
     the Great Depression when ``there were stump farms and no 
     jobs.''
       ``I got a fear that it might happen again,'' he said. ``And 
     you've got a different class of people today. In those days, 
     people looked after one another.''
       To City Clerk and Treasurer Lyla Boyd, they may not be 
     around to do so.
       ``My worse-case scenario is the timber people won't get 
     jobs and move away,'' she said. ``We'll become a bedroom 
     community for Everett and the Navy base. If people can't get 
     jobs, they'll go away. Or they'll commute.''


   what's ahead: some people have found solutions through retraining 
                     programs or community efforts

       What's next: It's been 7\1/2\ years since the environmental 
     group GreenWorld first petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
     Service to list the northern spotted owl as an endangered 
     species.
       Since then, loggling has virtually stopped in the owl 
     habitat of federal forests.
       The Clinton administration now plans a long term logging 
     ban on 7 million acres in Western Washington, Western Oregon 
     and Northern California.
       But the debate over how to use public lands in the 
     Northwest is far from over. Key actions are coming on the 
     judicial, legislative and administrative fronts. They 
     include:
       The Clinton plan: Logging interests say it goes too far; 
     some environmentalists say it doesn't go far enough. Both 
     sides filed lawsuits challenging the plan. U.S. District 
     Judge William Dwyer of Seattle is scheduled to hear their 
     arguments Sept. 12. Both sides expect an appeal--a process 
     that could delay a decision on the future of the forests well 
     into next year.
       East of the mountains: Dozens of government experts are 
     drafting a land-use plan for millions of acres of federal 
     forests east of the Cascade Mountains. Their plan, still 
     months away, could rival the timber setasides west of the 
     mountains--if they follow the recommendations of some 
     environmentalists.
       Logging road bans: Environmentalists continue to push hard 
     for congressional action to ban future road construction in 
     any 5,000-acre area of federal forest now free of roads. Such 
     legislation hasn't fared well so far in committee but still 
     could win approval this session, congressional sources said.
       Worker relief legislation: No new initiatives to help 
     displaced timber workers and their towns are expected in the 
     foreseeable future in Congress, sources said.
       ``We start from the position that the administration's plan 
     is the plan that will be in place,'' said Jim Hoff, chief of 
     staff for U.S. Rep. Jolene Unsoeld, D-Olympia. ``The 
     challenge is to get that plan up and running.''
       State economic development: In the state of Washington, 
     ``our tack will continue to be to try to get businesses into 
     the (timber) impacted areas,'' said Jordan Dey, deputy press 
     secretary to Gov. Mike Lowry.
       But so far, the state has no specific action plan.
                                  ____


                 I Made a Vow to Myself I Wouldn't Log


New business: Debra and Larry Hagen hope to save enough to get the loan 
                      needed to buy a pizza parlor

                          (By Trask Tapperson)

       Darrington.--As logging here dries up, Debra and Larry 
     Hagen are watering a home-grown future for themselves.
       They don't want to move away, so they turned to a new 
     commodity: pizza.
       Even by their own worst-case scenario for Darrington--a 
     shutdown of top employer Summit Timber Co.--the Hagens are 
     convinced their pizza parlor could survive--and perhaps even 
     prosper.
       ``If the mill went down, the town would really be in a 
     hole,'' said Larry, 21. ``But the growth is moving up I-5, 
     and it will hit all the crannies.''
       Debra has spent only one of her 22 years away from 
     Darrington, at a Kirkland business school.
       ``It was an experience, but we want to spend the rest of 
     our lives here, raise our kids here,'' she said, as Larry 
     nodded in agreement.
       Her family has logged in Darrington for four generations. 
     His father, Les, leads the Glad Tidings Assembly of God 
     flock. The couple rooted for the Darrington Loggers sports 
     teams before graduating from high school.
       Both had jobs at Pizza Plus before they got married last 
     year. When the owners put the place on the block, the Hagens 
     tried to buy it.
       The restaurant was netting almost $30,000 a year and 
     ``making more and more every year, and we didn't plan on 
     changing anything,'' Larry said. But they had no equity, so 
     the bank turned down the $125,000 loan to buy it.
       Unfazed, they got a $3,000, two-year personal loan from the 
     bank, cut a deal with the owners last October to lease the 
     business and will get first crack at buying it.
       With the ``for sale'' sign still outside, the Hagens work 
     11-hour days, five days a week. Helping out when they can are 
     Larry's parents, his brother and Debra's two sisters.
       ``It's hard, but it's worth it,'' Debra said.
       In their first quarter of business, they made the $900-a-
     month payments to the owners, the $150-a-month payments to 
     the bank for the loan and still took home $8,500.
       ``I think we'll be all right,'' Debra said.
       The childless couple is trying to save as much money as 
     they can to help cut the loan needed to buy the place, which 
     they plan to rename ``Pizza Hagen.''
       That beats by far the routes traditionally taken by so many 
     of Darrington's young people.
       ``When you live here what you do is marry a logger,'' Debra 
     said.
       ``I made a vow to myself I wouldn't log,'' Larry said. 
     ``They don't have a life. Daybreak to darkness they're 
     working. And when your whole income is based on something you 
     could lose over an animal, an owl, it's frightening.''
       Both still want to get college degrees some day--Larry in 
     law enforcement; Debra perhaps in business.
       But with only a year of college under each of their belts, 
     the pizza parlor ``is the best thing we could hope for,'' 
     Debra said.
       We had confidence, it was here for the taking it's nice to 
     work for yourself and we can stay in town,'' she said.
                                  ____


              Business Training Program Deemed Successful


    jobs: four students praise the oregon program for its practical 
                   training and promise of employment

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Prineville, OR.--Timber retraining programs sometimes work.
       They do in the semi-arid scrub land of eastern Oregon, home 
     to two large companies that make doors, window sills and many 
     other products out of wood.
       ``We need good employees.'' said Gevin Brown, a board 
     member of WPCC, an Oregon association of about 80 such 
     businesses.
       With training identified as a priority, the association 
     began recruiting workers this year. They screened 56 
     applicants down to 26 students.
       Eighteen people eventually completed a 54-hour, seven-week 
     course and graduated last month. All are guaranteed jobs at a 
     living wage at a variety of plants in central Oregon. The 
     second class begins in September.
       WPCC worked with a community college to produce the first 
     graduating class. But the training was done on site at the 
     American Molding Co. plant in Prineville.
       Employees worked with the students and focused on jobs at 
     the plant.
       ``The people that come through this program will know more 
     than 80 percent of the employees who are working here,'' said 
     plant manager John Lang.
       Among those who successfully completed the program:
       Lizabeth Brown, a 32-year-old single mother with three 
     children, ages 3, 5 and 7.
       ``I wanted to support the family without having to rely on 
     anybody else,'' she said.
       She had been running a day-care center but found it was too 
     much to handle while raising her own kids. ``I wanted 
     something for me,'' said Brown, who has a bachelor of arts 
     degree in general studies.
       The training program focused on survival skills needed in 
     the plant--right down to learning the basics of how to use a 
     tape measure, she said.
       ``I was impressed with how much energy they were putting 
     into the program and how much time,'' Brown said.
       She has been offered two wood-products jobs but wants to 
     wait until she gets one that will put her on the day shift.
       Ray Atkinson, 55, also is a single parent, raising an 8-
     year-old boy. The mill in Bend where he worked for nearly 
     three decades shut down, putting him on the streets and into 
     shock.
       ``I hadn't been laid off in 28\1/2\ years,'' he said.
       He probably could have found another sawmill job, he said, 
     but that would have meant relocating.
       ``I didn't want to go back to school, and I would have had 
     to move to get back into the sawmills,'' he said.
       He is now working for Bend Wood Products.
       George Thompson, 56, ``worked in the woods nearly all my 
     life,'' primarily as a ``gyppo'' logger moving from one place 
     to another.
       The most money he ever made was about $38,000, but he loved 
     ``the individual, freewheeling life.''
       Then the downturn in the industry and a desire for more 
     stability led him to look elsewhere.
       He found the WPCC retraining program and discovered ``a 
     free ride to take a new chance in life.''
       With a bachelor of arts degree in education, he could have 
     gone back to the classroom to teach, but he liked working in 
     wood products.
       He was expected to begin a job in mid-July.
       Dawn Helmholtz, 18, was on a fast track to nowhere in the 
     fast-food industry, where she worked the past four years at 
     Burger King.
       With her active 1-year-old bouncing on and off her lap, she 
     talked about her father's work at American Molding and how 
     much she wanted to follow him
       She also liked the idea of being part of a group that is 
     making something tangible.
       And she gets benefits and steady hours, making it easier to 
     get a baby sitter than in the past.
       She is working at American Molding now.
       All four of the students agreed with Helmholtz's assessment 
     of the program: ``I'm very, very impressed.''


                            why does it work

       ``We offer a guaranteed job in central Oregon at a choice 
     of companies with flexible hours paying a family wage with a 
     career path,'' reads a WPCC advertisement.
       That means people in the program:
       Have an immediate job upon successful completion of the 
     seven-week course. The students must pass a written test. The 
     average score was 92 percent for the first class.
       Earn a living wage--about $10.50 an hour on average, or 
     about $22,000 a year.
       Got hands-on training from people working in the industry. 
     Students and instructors said their rapport is high.
       ``Where it is down to our level, it makes a big 
     difference,'' student George Thompson said of the teaching.
       The fees are reasonable. Each student pays $100. The cost 
     of the program is about $1,200 for each person, but WPCC 
     absorbs most of the cost. The rest is covered by public 
     money.
       The $1,200 figure included start-up costs. That total 
     should fall to $400 for the next group of students.
       Program developers hold students accountable. Students must 
     attend every hour of every class. But the instructors don't 
     talk down to students. ``They make you feel right at home,'' 
     said student Ray Atkinson.
                                  ____


                      Opposite Views on One Issue

                  (By Trask Tapperson and Bob Partlow)

       Though adversaries over timber-cutting policies often 
     clash, both sides can recognize the suffering spreading 
     through towns on forest fringes.
       Here are two views--from Colin King, a self-employed 
     logger, and Elliott A. Norse, former chief ecologist of The 
     Wilderness Society, one of the leading national environmental 
     organizations. He is now chief scientist of the Redmond-based 
     Center for Marine Conservation.
       King's home is in Forks, the heart of the Olympic Peninsula 
     forest. Norse's home is in Redmond, the heart of the high-
     tech belt east of Seattle.


                             the ecologist

       ``We need to make sure timber communities don't become 
     welfare havens of alcoholism and despair. These things 
     torture me. I don't see easy answers.''
       His concern doesn't mean he and other key environmental 
     leaders are ready to sacrifice their forest-protection goals 
     to ease the economic and emotional pain woods workers and 
     their communities feel.
       ``How much are they victims and how much did they create 
     their own fate?'' asked Norse, author of the book, ``Ancient 
     Forests of the Northwest.''
       He comes down on the side against bailing them out.
       ``Was it really the business of the American people to bail 
     out Chrysler? We did it. And it worked. But I ask myself, 
     `Should we allow institutions and people to fail?' I think 
     they should be allowed to fail.
       ``There used to be towns that made their living whaling. 
     People went to sea.''
       Like their counterparts in logging, ``it was dangerous. A 
     lot didn't come back. They made good money, and they put 
     their lives on the line. Whales disappeared, and people had 
     to find another way,'' Norse said.
       One answer ``is to take the people who unwittingly 
     destroyed the forest and put them to work restoring it. Don't 
     teach them to be hamburger flippers or poets.
       ``It's a partial answer. If we add up all the partial 
     answers, we're still going to have people hurt by these 
     changes and we'll have to bite the bullet, let them sink or 
     swim. That may sound heartless, but I can't think of anything 
     else they can do.
       ``We see the anti-tax hysteria. The country's 
     infrastructure is falling apart because people won't pay more 
     taxes. you can't support people indefinitely.''


                               The logger

       King is bitter about what the government has done to shut 
     down the forests and hasn't done with programs invented by 
     bureaucrats to alleviate the suffering it has caused.
       ``Those programs won't do the job because those running 
     then are so out of touch.
       ``They've got to talk to someone who's suicidal,'' he said 
     mentioning a 22-year-old logger who hanged himself in the 
     Forks jail. ``They've got to talk to some women who's been 
     beat up at home. You've got to talk to people who've just 
     been evicted and they've got three kids.''
       He asked urban people with their jobs to consider what 
     could happen to them ``What if (the government) took your job 
     away and it became politically incorrect to be a reporter, 
     and for five or six years they said you were the most 
     worthless sadistic SOB that ever lived? And they took away 
     your living? then they said, `Well, that's OK, we'll make a 
     VCR repairman out of you,'''
       Like many others in the industry, King believes in the 
     words of a song sometimes heard around timber communities: 
     ``It's not just what we do, it's who we are.''
       That's why he thinks the only real solution is to allow 
     loggers back into the woods to cut timber in acceptable 
     amounts.
       ``You're taking those people's lives--their souls--these 
     people are loggers.''
                                  ____


      Environmentalists, Loggers Decide To Work Together on Crisis


   Coping: Two sides lay down arms to work out a solution to timber 
                                troubles

                            (By Bob Partlow)

       Fuel for fires has become fuel for cooperation to resolve 
     the timber crisis in some West Coast communities.
       The Applegate Partnership in southern Oregon and the Quincy 
     Library Group in Northern California traded acrimony for 
     accord.
       Environmentalists and loggers agreed that some trees must 
     be cut down to reduce the danger of devastating forest fires. 
     That, in turn, will create jobs and keep the forests healthy 
     for generations to come.
       ``Whining is not going to get it done,'' said Mike Jackson, 
     a water-rights attorney in Quincy, Calif., who describes 
     himself as a ``flaming, left-wing environmental wacko.''
       Working in the same town with loggers and timber-dependent 
     families, he decided a strategy of talking, not fighting, 
     would lead to results.
       ``This is a small town,'' Jackson said. ``You walk down the 
     streets and see these people, and you see them at the kids' 
     baseball games. I just decided after awhile that flipping 
     people off three times a day gets old.''
       Jack Shipley, a retired public official in Grants Pass, 
     Ore., and member of several environmental groups, came to the 
     same conclusion as he thought about the 500,000-acre 
     Applegate River watershed.
       ``The (federal) agencies had their own vision. The 
     environmentalists had their own vision. The timber industry 
     had its own vision,'' Shipley said. ``Everybody had part of 
     the truth, but nobody had the truth singly. If we were going 
     to solve the problem, we were going to have to solve it 
     together.''
       Shipley and Jackson believed that the best solution was to 
     get people involved at the grass roots. The two also followed 
     an initial strategy: Keep politicians and reporters away from 
     the discussions.
       The Oregon partnership's nine-member group, including three 
     federal officials, put in 8,000 hours the first year alone.
       In California, ``We met until we quit arguing. We had (the 
     plan) outlined before we let them into the meeting,'' Jackson 
     said of two government officials.
       A crucial element of both plans was addressing a U.S. 
     Forest Service policy that calls for crews to immediately 
     douse forest fires--even those caused by lightning or other 
     natural events.
       The two groups devised a response: Remove the kindling for 
     the fires--mostly small trees--that leaves the forests 
     tinder-dry and ripe for catastrophe.
       A key to the discussions: defining what part of the forest 
     should be logged.
       Both groups advocated cutting down smaller trees and 
     clearing out areas near streams and rivers. That provides 
     good management and good jobs, they said.
       ``It's not a question of taking a person who's been a 
     timber faller all his life, training him to be a computer 
     operator and shipping him to Phoenix, Ariz.,'' Shipley said.
       Neither plan has come easily.
       The Oregon group has worked for months to get one sale of 
     500,000 board feet in the 500,000-acre Applegate River 
     watershed. Another sale of 1.5 million board feet is pending.
       Shipley said the area probably produced 500 million board 
     feet annually at its peak.
       The California group fashioned a classic compromise--the 
     industry agreed not to log areas near sensitive watersheds or 
     places without logging roads. In return, environmentalists 
     agreed to support a level of cutting in other areas that 
     would sustain the forests and hundreds of jobs for years to 
     come. The government must buy off on it.
       Shipley also said he and others in the local environmental 
     movement had to overcome an attitude from national 
     environmentalists who didn't trust their ideas.
       ``They started to get heartburn because the local people 
     were taking control,'' he said.
       Echoing a complaint made often by loggers in small towns. 
     Shipley said, ``Too often, folks in rural America are viewed 
     like we fell off the turnip truck yesterday. It's a rural-
     urban perspective.''
       But he and Jackson believe the results will be worth the 
     work and can become models for other towns.
       ``Every place is different,'' Jackson said. ``So the 
     substances of any solution might be different in Bellingham, 
     Wash., than it is in Quincy. But what we have is an 
     exportable commodity.''
                                  ____


                  Clinton Officials Pull Out of Talks

       The Clinton administration recently pulled all federal 
     officials from community groups that are trying to fashion 
     local solutions to timber cutbacks.
       Those include the Applegate Partnership in southern Oregon 
     and the Quincy Library Group in Northern California.
       The reason: The Clinton administration has been sued by 
     timber industry groups who argue that the government forest 
     plan was designed in secret--against the provisions of 
     federal law.
       ``Until we figure out a way to protect ourselves legally, 
     we have to play it safe,'' said Lauri Hennessey, a 
     spokeswoman for the Clinton administration's timber plan.
       Jack Shipley, a founder of the Applegate Partnership, said 
     the move was disappointing.
       ``The very thing we've been trying to do is keep an open 
     public dialogue,'' Shipley said. ``Now they're saying it's 
     unlawful? Something is out of whack.''
       Several groups that are trying to work out new forest plans 
     in their areas met earlier this month in Redding, Calif.
       Shipley said he came away from the meeting with optimism.
       ``We're going to get through this thing,'' he predicted. 
     ``All it did is give us more resolve. I expect (the federal 
     officials) will be reinvolved with us in some way within 60 
     days. But these things are never easy. It's an uphill 
     battle.''
                                  ____


     Public Officials Sound Upbeat About Aid to Help Timber Workers

       Some samples of news releases put out by members of 
     Congress and others to hail their roles in directing federal 
     money to help timber towns and worker retaining efforts:
       ``Unsoeld Proposes Jobs Program for Timber Communities; 
     Swift Joins As Original Co-Sponsor''--U.S. Reps. Jolene 
     Unsoeld and Al Swift, November 1991.
       ``Murray Gets Economic Development Funds for Timber 
     Towns''--U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, September 1993.
    
    
       ``Economic Recovery Board Charts Course for Timber 
     Communities''--Office of Gov. Booth Gardner, December 1991.
       ``Timber Retraining Benefits Expanded, Washington State 
     Employment Security Department Says''--PR News Wire, May 
     1993.
       ``Unique Center Responds to Closures''--Grays Harbor Career 
     Transition Center, May 1993.
       ``Work Force Training will Benefit Area''--Centralia 
     College, August 1993.
       ``Good News for 21 Timber Distressed Counties: Jobs-In-
     Environment Grants Offered''--Washington Department of 
     Natural Resources, January 1994.
       ``Jobs for the '90s Task Force Gathers Valuable Information 
     on Timber and Local Economy''--Washington State House 
     Republican Media Services, August 1991.
                                  ____


                 Timber Series Sprang From Logger Anger

                            (By Jack Keith)

       The memo was dated Nov. 29, 1991.
       Bellingham Herald writer Trask Tapperson, fresh from 
     several conversations with timber workers, had been struck by 
     the frustration they faced.
       About fewer trees to cut? Definitely. About job layoffs or 
     cuts? Certainly.
       But what irked the workers most was that the loudly 
     professed political ``solutions'' to the timber issue were 
     failures, by and large, Tapperson's memo to editors said.
       The ``answers'' of retraining grants and special seminars 
     and VCR repair training were not solving the problem.
       Worse, the failure was expensive, wasting taxpayer dollars 
     left and right, the angry people said.
       ``Lots is getting spent with little to show for it,'' 
     Tapperson wrote in his summary of the workers' comments.
       We saw a story there, but we knew it was complex and 
     difficult to get a handle on.
       Today on Page A1, we begin publication of a dramatic four-
     day series uncovering a frightening lack of accountability in 
     the government's effort to retrain timber workers for new 
     jobs.
       More than $100 million worth of government programs has 
     been poured into the Pacific Northwest. But no one in 
     government can tell us exactly who got what and how many 
     workers have been retrained and are now working in a new 
     field.
       Tapperson and Bob Partlow, the Herald's Olympia bureau 
     reporter, spent three months pounding on agency doors to try 
     to find someone who was keeping track of the massive program.
       Somebody thinks it's working just fine. The Clinton 
     Administration plans to spend $1.2 billion more to help 
     loggers over the next five years.
       But when you ask--as Tapperson and Partlow did in 53 
     Freedom of Information requests--no one can provide the 
     numbers.
       And out in the towns of the Northwest, there is bitterness, 
     Partlow says.
       ``It's very bleak out there. There's a real sense of anger 
     with the government, a lack of trust. The same government 
     that cost them the job was going to retrain them.''
       Among the contacts that prompted the series was a letter 
     Tapperson received from a frustrated timer worker.
    
    
       ``One thing is very hard to understand is why 2-4 year 
     college degree programs are not available to the displaced 
     worker. Every week there are jobs in the paper for civil 
     engineering/environment degrees. The only thing being offered 
     (displaced timber workers) is less than one year schooling.
       ``The money being spent looks like job security for those 
     in the (state and federal programs).''
       The series continues through Wednesday.
       Farewell: This is Tapperson's final series for the Herald. 
     He turned 55 this spring and has decided to take early 
     retirement.
       He has been a key figure in Whatcom County since his 
     arrival in Bellingham in 1982.
       His early reporting included an in-depth look at the 
     decline of the Northwest timber industry, a series that won a 
     national Arbor Day Award. He was part of a Herald reporting 
     team that examined the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and told 
     Whatcom County readers of the incredible cleanup costs 
     involved.
       Tapperson served as city editor for five years, helping 
     refocus the Herald's local coverage. In his final years with 
     the newspaper, he returned to reporting and covered 
     investigative and in-depth stories on a variety of topics.
       Tapperson always followed the notion that a reporter's sole 
     allegiance was to readers. He worked tirelessly to that end.
       Jack Keith, managing editor of The Bellingham Herald, 
     writes a Sunday column.
                                  

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