The Bureau of Land Management Oregon/Washington State Office intends to revise the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan and the Southwestern Oregon Resource Management Plan and prepare an associated environmental impact statement, and it has opened a public scoping period to collect comments on issues, planning criteria, and possible alternatives. The revisions would replace the existing resource management plans, and the comment deadline is March 23, 2026, the Bureau of Land Management announced.
The planning area spans Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Jackson, Josephine, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Washington, and Yamhill Counties and includes approximately 2,460,000 acres of public land, most of which are Revested Oregon and California Railroad lands or Reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road lands managed under the Oregon and California Revested Railroad Lands Act of 1937. The lands fall within the Coos Bay, Medford, Northwest Oregon, and Roseburg Districts, and the Klamath Falls Field Office of the Lakeview District.
The stated purpose of the revisions is to seek an increase in sustained yield of timber harvest in line with historically higher production levels on these lands, and to meet O&C Act requirements to determine productive capacity, declare an allowable sale quantity, and offer it for sale annually. The notice links the planning effort to reduced timber production after adoption of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan and to reduced county revenue-sharing payments tied to timber receipts under the O&C Act and the Coos Bay Wagon Road Act of 1939.
The notice describes historic harvest levels and more recent volumes, stating that annual volumes often exceeded 1 billion board feet in the 1960s and 1970s, peaked in 1964 at approximately 1.638 billion board feet, and averaged about 1.078 billion board feet annually from 1960 through 1989. It states harvests fell from 704 MMbf in 1990 to under 100 MMbf by 1994, and it lists post-2000 volumes generally between 45 and 275 MMbf, including 267 MMbf in 2025.
The notice also states the revisions will consider forest treatments to mitigate wildfire effects and salvage timber affected by wildfire, drought, and other disturbances, and it cites wildfire figures for U.S. acres burned annually and for BLM-managed lands. It says the revisions will consider information relating to barred owl management to address threats to the northern spotted owl, and it cites Executive Order 14223 on timber imports and Executive Order 14225 on expansion of American timber production.
BLM identifies a no-action alternative and a preliminary action alternative aimed at managing BLM-administered lands for sustained-yield timber production consistent with maximum productive capacity. It states that under all action alternatives it would reserve from sustained-yield timber harvest all Congressionally designated lands, approximately 4% of the decision area, lands not capable of supporting sustained-yield timber production including non-forest lands, approximately 13%, and streamside buffers of 25 to 100 feet depending on stream type, approximately 6%.
The notice lists planning-criteria issue areas that include sustained-yield timber harvest, areas of critical environmental concern, air quality, botany, cultural resources, fire and fuels management, fisheries, forest management, hydrology, invasive species, lands and realty, lands with wilderness characteristics, livestock grazing, minerals, National Trail System resources, recreation, socioeconomics, soils, Tribal interests, visual resources, wild horse, wildlife, and Wild and Scenic Rivers. It also states the agency will reevaluate existing areas of critical environmental concern in the planning area and will evaluate any nominated areas of critical environmental concern submitted during the comment period.
Comments can be submitted through the BLM ePlanning website under project number DOI-BLM-ORWA-0000-2026-0001-RMP-EIS, by email to BLM_OR_Revision_Scoping@blm.gov
, or by mail to Attention BLM OR930, 1220 SW 3rd Ave, Portland, OR 97204. The notice lists Elizabeth Burghard, Medford District Manager, as the point of contact at (503) 808-6056.
