Following the vote by the Forest Practices Board during its Nov. 12 meeting to adopt the new Type Np (non-fish perennial) buffer rule, private landowners who own forestland in Western Washington will have to update their management plans to include larger buffers.
This rule will economically impact Grays Harbor County. The “Economic Impact Analysis of the Proposed Forest Practices Riparian Buffer Rule Change for Type Np Streams in Western Washington” published by the Natural Resources Spatial Informatics Group with the Precision Forestry Cooperative at the University of Washington reported that Grays Harbor County will see a 6% decrease ($4.6 million) in harvestable standing volume.
The current buffer rule requires 50-foot no-harvest buffers on non-fish streams, with buffer lengths based upon the length of the stream. Additionally, areas associated with no fish streams, such as headwall and side slope seeps, headwater springs, also require buffers and where two or more no fish streams intersect. The new rule now requires 75-foot non-harvest buffers for the entire no fish stream, and landowners can select which riparian management zone protection strategy they will use based upon their harvest plan that will occur within a topographic basin.
For example, if over five years a landowner will harvest 85% or more of a unit larger than 30 acres, the 75-foot buffer is required along the entire length of such streams. For harvest units that are less than 30 acres, the length of the 75-foot buffer depends upon where Type S (shoreline) or Type F (fish) streams intersect with no fish streams and stream bankfull width.
The vote was 7-5, with one board member abstaining. Those approving: Ben Serr, Department of Commerce; Casey Sixkiller, Department of Ecology; Chris Conklin, Department of Fish and Wildlife; Pene Speaks, general public member, Rebecca Hunt, general public member; and Jim Peters, general public member. Those opposing: Steve Barnowe-Meyer, general public member and small forest landowner; Frank Chandler, general public member and independent logging contractor; Wayne Thompson, timber products union, Kelly McLain, Department of Agriculture; and Meghan Tuttle, general public member. Heidi Eisenhour, a county commissioner with Jefferson County abstained.
The reason for adopting this new rule is to ensure that water flowing from no fish streams into streams with fish won’t cause an increase in stream temperature. Two studies commissioned by the Forest Practices Board’s Adaptive Management Program, Hard Rock and Soft Rock, compared plots that were harvested under current Forest Practices buffer rules and plots that had 100% continuous buffers against controls plots. The results found that there were measurable, yet short-term, temperature increases that averaged 0.3oC to 1.2oC. However, the interpretation of these studies’ results was vigorously debated both during the public comment period for this rule and preceding the Board’s vote.
The new rule will take effect Aug. 31, 2026, as requested by Washington Department of Natural Resources staff.
“Board manual development has been slow going,” said Maggie Franquemont, the Forest Practices Policy program manager. “We are at capacity with a bunch of our current projects and so we want to make sure that we have time to really develop both board manuals that would impact this rule.”
She further added that, “This also allows us time to fully develop our training, as well as update any of the forms associated with the new rulemaking.”
The two sections of the Forest Board Practices Manual to be updated are Section 7: “Guidelines for Riparian Management Zones (RMZ) (Measuring Widths and Tree Counts) and Section 23 “Guidelines for Field Protocol to Locate Mapped Divisions Between Stream Types & Perennial Stream Identification.”
Concerns regarding the unavailability during the public comment period or for the Forest Practices Board to review prior to the vote of how this new rule would be operationally implemented was raised by Tuttle.
“It’s really difficult for us to move forward on voting on a rule when those operational impacts haven’t been evaluated or figured out,” Tuttle said.
A specific concern she cited from the public comments was from a forester asking how to “defin[e] a thinning scheme for the outer 25 feet of buffers on Np streams greater than three feet and applying the area control option in Np stream basins less than 30 acres with 85% harvest over five years.”
Because small forest landowners will be impacted significantly by this new rule, Donelle Mahan, assistant division manager and senior policy planner with the Forest Practices Division, presented potential mitigation methods, such as “reducing, modifying, or eliminating substantive regulatory requirements” in the form of alternate plans, and “simplifying, reducing, or eliminating recordkeeping and reporting requirements” through the technical expertise provided by the Small Forest Landowner Office to small forest land owners and the availability of the Forest Riparian Easement Program (FREP).
When a small forest landowner enrolls in FREP, they receive compensation for up to 90% of the timber that cannot be harvested in the no-harvest buffer or on unstable slopes. It’s only in recent years that DNR received adequate funding to successfully work through a yearslong backlog.
However, as several Board members pointed out during the discussion prior to the vote, funding for FREP is determined by the Legislature, as is by extension, funding for the Small Forest Landowner Office.
“Given the uncertainty around the rule and our lack of authority influencing FREP and the funding mechanisms here, what guarantee do we have that these programs will be better funded, fully funded in the future, or continue to be funded at the current level?” posed Tuttle.
McLain expressed a similar concern, saying, “I am still concerned about the SBEIS [Small Business Economic Impact Statements] and the CES [Concise Explanatory Statement] and the identified significant financial impacts to both small and large forest landowners. And the fact that it relies on a legislatively variable existing program that has to be funded to fill a hole, and we have history of those programs not being funded.”
She continued, “And this board has no say over what that funding portfolio looks like when it comes down to it. And that is a huge concern, because if the money is not there, then where have we left the landowners who were shown to be significantly impacted in this space?”
Other Board members similarly acknowledged this reality by saying, “We can’t guarantee the Legislature is going to give us funding” or “We obviously don’t control that the Legislature does” and “When we communicate with the Legislature, my hope is that that will become a priority for them as well.”
Regarding the cost benefit analysis of this new rule, Franquemont acknowledged that the “majority of costs are felt by one economic sector,” however, the “probable benefits outweigh probable costs.”
Before voting “Support,” Serr said, “While my agency has significant concerns about the economic impacts of this rule as it stands, we believe it’s important that we take this step to follow the process laid out by the Adaptive Management Program that was established in the Forest and Fish Law.”
Serr continued, “I want to make it clear today that should this rule be adopted, the Department of Commerce asked the board to exercise its maximum authority to mitigate economic impacts on small businesses and small forest landowners using it for the tools available.”
In his comments, Thompson called attention to these economic impacts.
“There were two sentences in the SBEIS that referenced job losses in the timber industry and the associated jobs in the community. … We continue to go down this road of just gutting the timber community in this state.”
In the Final Cost-Benefit Analysis that provided the economic underpinning of the new rule, the authors determined that 20 counties in Western Washington would be affected by the new rule and the effect of the rule would result in lost job opportunities and lost tax revenue.
Probable costs of the rule are decreased forestland values and increased forest harvest operating costs. The probable benefits identified are reduced risk of stream temperature increases, improved wildlife habitat quality, increased carbon sequestration, and tribal cultural values.
These probable costs and benefits were evaluated based on social welfare values, which were described as “measures of ‘economic efficiency,’ which reflect changes in overall societal well-being. The reason why the economic impacts, such as in the form of tax revenue and jobs, weren’t included as a probably cost is because these “are not measures of economic efficiency because they are not evaluated with respect to overall social well-being, do not incorporate the values people derive from participation in specific activities, and do not consider the potential to offset negative economic impacts through the value created for rule beneficiaries.”
However, what wasn’t included as a probable cost are the well-documented societal changes that result from detrimental economic impacts, such as poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, intergenerational trauma, and poor mental health, which are tangible reflections of change in overall societal well-being.
In the public comment period following the vote, Elaine O’Neil, the executive director of Washington Farm Forestry Association said, “Everyone seems to think if we look after the smalls [small forest landowners] everything will be fine. You can’t take eight billion dollars out of a sector and have everything be fine. You can’t even get FREP payments if you don’t have a viable commercial harvest adjacent to it.”
