Forest Service schedules public meetings across NE Oregon for Blue Mountains Forest Plan revision

Published 6:21 am Friday, July 4, 2025

The three national forests in the Blue Mountains have scheduled a series of public meetings during July to gather public comments about the ongoing process to revise the long-term management plans for the forests.

The Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur national forests are updating the management plans that date to 1990. The effort involves about 4.9 million acres of public land — an area bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

The plan doesn’t cover the 652,000-acre Hells Canyon National Recreation Area on the Wallowa-Whitman.

Management plans list the general goals for each forest but do not involve specific projects, such as timber sales or recreation improvements. Site-specific projects are analyzed separately in a public process through the National Environmental Policy Act.

During the spring of 2014, more than 1,300 people sent letters to the Forest Service with comments about the forest plan revision, and almost 600 people attended public meetings across Northeastern Oregon.

Letter writers commented on a variety of topics, including motor vehicle access, areas potentially eligible to be designated by Congress as wilderness, wildfire threats, how logging, grazing and mining will be managed, the effects of climate change, and protecting wildlife habitat.

Opinions varied widely, and on several topics, such as wilderness and logging, some commenters’ preferences were in effect opposite from those submitted by others.

The public meetings will be in person and virtual. All meetings will be 5-8 p.m., with doors opening at the various venues at 4:30 p.m.  More information and links to virtual meetings are at tinyurl.com/bde5xf6w.

The July meetings aim to cover the following topics:

• The draft Preliminary Need to Change from the 1990 Land Management Plans.

• The development of the Preliminary Draft Land Management Plan.

• Updates on the National Wild and Scenic Rivers review, the preliminary Species of Conservation Concern lists, and the review of lands that may have Wilderness characteristics.

• The NOI approval process along with the forthcoming EIS development.

• The formal scoping period commencing when the upcoming NOI is published in the Federal Register in 2025, along with the associated public engagement tools.

The meetings schedule:

July 14: Heppner, Gilliam & Bisbee Event Center, 106 E. May St.

July 15: Pendleton, Pendleton Convention Center, 1601 Westgate

July 16: Dayton, Washington, Columbia County Faigrounds, 5 N. Pine St.

July 17: La Grande, EOU Gilbert Event Center-Hoke Union Building, 1 University Blvd.

July 21: Enterprise, Cloverleaf Hall, 600 NW First St.

July 22: Baker City, Baker County Events Center, Baker County Fairgrounds, 2600 East St.

July 23: John Day, Grant County Fairgrounds, Trowbridge Pavilion, 411 NW Bridge St.

July 24: Burns, Harney County Fairgrounds, Memorial Building, 69660 S. Egan Road.

Forest Plan revision history

The U.S. Forest Service initially started work on new plans for the three national forests in the Blue Mountains in 2003, but two subsequent efforts stalled.

The agency was already almost a decade behind the usual schedule when it released a draft version of new plans for the forests in 2014.

But after hearing complaints, some from people who thought the plans were too restrictive on logging, grazing and other uses, and some from people who thought the plans weren’t restrictive enough, Forest Service officials withdrew the draft plans.

The agency tried again in 2018, releasing a final environmental impact statement analyzing the proposed new plans.

That, too, prompted a raft of objections.

The Eastern Oregon Counties Association, which includes Baker, Grant, Union, Wallowa, Umatilla and Morrow counties, listed eight main objections: economics, access, pace and scale of restoration, grazing, fire, salvage logging, coordination among agencies and wildlife.

The Forest Service withdrew that proposal as well in March 2019.

Chris French, deputy chief for the Forest Service, stated the proposed plan was difficult to understand and “(did) not fully account for the unique social and economic needs of local communities in the area.”

In 2023 the Forest Service restarted the process again.