Board Rejects Atonal Timber Sale... for Now

"Today I am proud to sign a commissioners order to preserve 77,000 acres of structurally complex forests across western Washington including every acre of our older forests.”

Those were Commissioner Upthegrove’s words at his August 26 press conference. Many Washingtonians heard this as a commitment to protect every acre of our remaining legacy forests. However, DNR’s definition of “older forests” is based on a very narrow set of arbitrary criteria that have little to do with its history, or the ecological legacies. Most legacy forests do not meet these criteria, and do not qualify for protection as "older forests."

Now it appears that even Upthegrove's promise to protect "older forests" was short-lived. One of the timber sales that Upthegrove had postponed in early 2025 (the "Atonal" timber sale, located in the Deer Creek Legacy Forest) was determined by DNR to contain "older forest." The Atonal timber sale is located in the North Puget Sound lowlands, just north of the town of Oso -- in an area that has been particularly hard hit by logging, where virtually no legacy forests remain. Yet DNR has now green-lit the sale for auction. We initially assumed this was an oversight, but when LFDC contacted the Commissioner’s staff, the agency responded not by canceling the timber sale, but by revising its website to remove his explicit promise to protect “every acre” of older forest.

DNR's website originally said:

“A bold step forward for forest conservation. DNR is conserving 77,000 acres of structurally complex forests, including more than 10,000 acres of older forests, which means all remaining older forests on state lands will be conserved.” 

and now it says:

“A bold step forward for forest conservation. DNR is conserving 77,000 acres of structurally complex forests, including almost 10,000 acres of older forests.”

At the Board of Natural Resources meeting earlier this month, the Atonal timber sale was recommended to the Board by DNR for auction but failed to secure the required minimum of four votes. Chris Reykdal, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and WSU Dean Raj Khosla, voted to deny approval of the Atonal timber sale. Commissioner Upthegrove, Owen Rowe (representing Governor Furguson), and Randy Johnson (representing the counties that receive revenue from DNR), voted in favor of the Atonal timber sale. Dan Brown, Director of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington, was not present.

During the Board meeting, Commissioner Upthegrove walked back his commitment to protect older forests, stating that Atonal and other similar timber sales that are scheduled for auction over the next two years, that would involve the logging of "older forests," must proceed to ensure the agency is adequately funded. However, his position appears to be based on a misunderstanding of the extent to which currently planned timber sales would impact "older forests." Atonal is the first sale proposed by DNR within the past two years -- and one of only a handful of sales planned for auction over the next two years -- that are likely to involve the logging of "older forests." These stands are extremely rare on lands managed by DNR.

It also appears that DNR's recent Structurally Complex Forest model has a tendency to identify older forests in places where they do not exist. This issue surfaced in Clallam County, where the DNR’s "Sooey" timber sale was approved for auction in October. Portions of that sale were originally included in the first draft of Commissioner Upthegrove’s conservation map because the model incorrectly flagged them as "older forest." Subsequent field verification showed they were not.

We've done some digging, and LFDC has identified at least four timber sales scheduled over the next two years that DNR’s model appears to have misclassified as "older forests." Conversely, the model failed to identify Atonal as "older forest," even though a field survey conducted by DNR later confirmed that it is.

These repeated errors suggest that Commissioner Upthegrove is overestimating both the number of older-forest stands entering the timber-sale pipeline and the financial impact of fulfilling his promise to protect “every acre” of older forest on DNR-managed lands. This promise was widely quoted across media outlets, including the Seattle Times, and the Commissioner's decision to retroactively walk back this commitment raises serious concerns. The Atonal sale would generate only about $194,000 in revenue to DNR, and it very well may be the only timber sale scheduled over the next two years that contains any older forest at all.

DNR's Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) calls on DNR to protect and restore old growth forests across 10–15% of the North Puget Sound region. DNR is far short of meeting this target. According to an analysis conducted by DNR in 2021, less than 3% of state-owned forests in Northwest Washington are over 150 years old, the minimum age identified in the HCP for old growth forests.

Atonal contains 38.8 acres of "older forest," which is similar to old growth. These acres are located entirely on lands managed on behalf of Washington State University. Given Dean Raj Khosla’s vote against the sale, it is clear that the trust beneficiary does not need this revenue. DNR has no compelling reason, beyond its own financial motivations to proceed with this project.

Now that Atonal has failed to secure approval from the Board of Natural Resources, the project is in limbo. Commissioner Upthegrove could choose to bring the sale back to the Board for approval when all six members of the board are present, or he could reconsider whether this timber sale is truly necessary, and listen to the Board members who expressed serious doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with this misguided project.