State and federal budget cutbacks, fueled in part by the sub-prime lending crisis that promulgated the nation’s economic plunge into recession, may cause further problems for northern California land owners interested in harvesting timber from private land.

A timber industry briefing paper prepared by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal-Fire, noted that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “will reduce its review of technical assistance requests by 75 percent,” thus pushing those requests back onto the jurisdiction of Cal-Fire.

The technical assistance requests include reviewing timber harvesting plans and non-industrial timber management plans within the habitat areas designated for the spotted owl, a threatened species.

However, Cal-Fire has no wildlife biologists on staff, and has in the past contracted for those services either with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or with the California Department of Fish and Game, the briefing paper further notes.

“I know that there have been slowdowns due to the lack of federal review personnel,” said Mark Pawlicki, director of governmental affairs for Sierra Pacific Industries of Anderson, the nation’s largest private landowner with more than 2 million acres of timber in northern California, Oregon and Nevada.

“It’s a real problem, but it is a problem that is just looming on the horizon if the state budget cuts, as proposed, are enacted by the (state) legislature,” Pawlicki said.

“This story will continue to brew as tighter budgets are put into play at either the federal or state level. Due to the state’s projected $16 billion deficit, we have heard that there will be a 10 percent cut in personnel,” he added.

Pawlicki said that since Sierra Pacific Industries typically has timber harvest plans approved one or two years before harvesting even starts, the slowdown may not immediately affect the company’s operations.

However, smaller firms than his might be going hungry for trees as early as this summer, Pawlicki allowed.

A quick check with Oak Run-based Steve Kerns, a certified wildlife biologist and a principal partner at Wild Land Resource Managers, confirmed Pawlicki’s fears.

“This is an incredible story of the multiple layers of bureaucracy tying the hands of private land owners who want to harvest their timber,” Kerns said. “This is a logistical nightmare that will keep logs from flowing to the mills,” he continued.

That, in turn, would prevent the processing and delivery of lumber and wood products just about the time that economic prognosticators predict the nation will start to emerge from the current recession, some time in late 2009 or 2010.

Checking further, the Valley Post encountered some of the same bureaucratic finger-pointing that Kerns alluded to in his earlier statement.

“In our proposed 2008-09 budget request, there are some reductions in resource management positions,” admitted Mike Jarvis, deputy director of communications for Cal-Fire. “Our total budget will be cut by seven employees, or more accurately, seven full-time positions, so it may impact some part-time employees as well. But as far as this having an impact on the review of timber harvest plans, I would recommend you talk to the California Department of Fish and Game.”

So we did.

Our repeated calls to Sacramento were finally answered by John McCamman, who until April 16, was the acting director of California Department of Fish and Game (DFG). Don Koch was appointed to take over the DFG by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger, a move applauded by California Trout and other conservation-minded groups for Koch’s “collaborative and determined work in the Department’s Region 1 that has provided substantial aid for salmon and steelhead recovery,” according to Brian Stranko, chief executive officer for California Trout.

But Koch was too new to the issue of timber harvest plan slowdowns to be of much assistance, which left us back with McCamman.

“In February, we had 22 positions that had something to do with timber harvest plan reviews,” said McCamman, who for the past seven months has managed the department’s 2,500 employees and $401 million annual budget.

“We ended up losing two positions in the proposed budget, but that budget has yet to be adopted so those people are still on board,” said McCamman, who also claims familiarity with Shasta County’s timber-based economy, having served from 1993 to 1995 as Shasta County’s chief administrative officer. McCamman was replaced by Doug Latimer, who was succeeded in December 2005 by Larry Lees.

McCamman originally left Shasta County to become chief of staff for then newly-elected U.S. Representative George Radanovich, R-Fresno, and served in that capacity for nine years.

To forestall any further delays in processing timber harvest plans, McCamman said a state legislative committee headed by Ira Ruskin, D-Los Altos, who represents the 21st Assembly District, is exploring higher fees assessed for plan review as a way to keep some of those state employees on board.

Still, it might behoove some private land owners and industrial timber companies to look at the landscape a bit differently, McCamman suggested.

“The smaller the company, the more likely they are to be impacted by any slowdown in the review of timber harvest plans,” McCamman said.

“In that regard, your wildlife biologist Mr. Kerns just may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine,” he continued, referring to the somewhat antiquated practice of using small birds as indicators of poor air quality deep underground.