Plum Creek announces major timberland sale

Plum Creek Timber Co. announced last week it will sell about 117,000 acres of its timber lands in the Blackfoot Valley to The Nature Conservancy for about $85 million.

The land is interspersed with public lands in a checkerboard pattern on the east side of Highway 83 from Seeley Lake to the Blackfoot River. The $135 million deal includes 48,000 acres of Plum Creek land in Washington state and reduces the company’s Montana land holdings to about 772,000 acres, Plum Creek spokeswoman Kate Tate said.

The deal complements other large land sales in the Blackfoot and Swan valleys that Plum Creek has made to the Conservancy in recent years. But the Blackfoot deal does not include a fiber-supply agreement.

Plum Creek has expressed concerns recently about its log supplies. Last month, the company announced it would curtail production at its Columbia Falls sawmill from 40 hours per week to 36 after a successful lawsuit by environmental groups reduced log supplies from state forests.

But the Blackfoot sale, the company says, involves higher elevation land with a slow-growing timber base. When Plum Creek sold timberland in the Swan Valley, an agreement allowed the company to continue harvesting logs for up to 15 years on some of the 310,000 acres it sold.

Plum Creek had started to sell small parcels of its Blackfoot timber lands for home and recreational development but now says the land is better suited for conservation.

“Plum Creek has a strong history of conservation and is pleased to partner in the sale of these lands to accommodate the public interest in securing permanent conservation that protects ecological and recreational values,” Plum Creek CEO Rick Holley said after the sale. “This is an important conservation project that recognizes the highest benefit these lands offer — protecting ecological values and helping to maintain public access. We are pleased that we were able to work with The Nature Conservancy to conserve some of the nation’s most important forest areas.”

The land was also impacted two forest fires — the Jocko and Gold Creek fires — and it’s largely drier terrain, with slower growing conditions, noted Tom Ray, the company’s vice president of Northwest Resources and Manufacturing. Ray also noted just a small portion of the timber base served mills in Columbia Falls. He said the company would continue to lobby on log supply issues.

Chris Bryant, a land protection specialist for the Conservancy, said the Blackfoot timber lands are prime for restoration, and it would take time to rebuild a suitable timber base.

“It needs to rest,” he said.

The Conservancy will eventually look to sell the land either to public buyers, like the state or federal governments, or to private landowners, but no discussions have begun, Bryant said.

Conservation easements would be attached to the timber lands in event of a sale. The goal is to keep the lands from being subdivided into smaller parcels, Bryant said, while keeping traditional Montana values on the properties, like hunting, fishing and other recreation, which local economies depend on.

The Conservancy will close the deal in January 2015, and public access will remain the same as it did with Plum Creek.