Salwasser to testify in Senate hearing on salvage logging flap

Following a state lawmaker’s probe into Oregon State University’s College of Forestry, the Senate Natural Resources and Alternative Energy Committee will meet Friday to discuss post-fire logging and academic independence.

Among those testifying will be Hal Salwasser, dean of the College of Forestry. He expects to discuss academic freedom and defend the ability of his college to conduct independent, unbiased research.

“A couple of (state senators) have concerns that we’re overly influenced by the forest industry, and that (that influence) causes us to do work that has findings in their favor,” Salwasser said.

Salwasser denies that his college is too closely linked to the timber industry.

“We’re not overly influenced by anybody. As a land grant university, we have an obligation to be relevant to everybody that’s engaged in forest resources, to make sure that our education, research and outreach programs are relevant to their needs,” Salwasser said.

The forest resources community includes not just the timber industry, but also state and federal forest managers, tribal forest managers and family forest land owners, Salwasser noted.

In February, Sen. Charlie Ringo, D-Beaverton, requested copies of all electronic and paper documents generated since October by Salwasser and several OSU forestry professors who tried to delay the publication of graduate student Dan Donato’s controversial work in the journal Science.

“People in the environmental field have been concerned that the College of Forestry is too close to the timber industry. That calls into question issues of academic independence and the reliability of the science coming out of the college. The Donato case seems to confirm that,” Ringo said.

Friday’s hearing, which begins at 10 a.m., will address several other issues before tackling the College of Forestry flap at 1 p.m.

In addition to Salwasser, a number of others are expected to testify on salvage logging and research integrity. They include Robert Beschta, OSU professor emeritus of forest engineering; Mike Newton, OSU professor emeritus in the College of Forestry; Cristina Eisenberg, Ph.D. student in forest resources at OSU; Joe Fontaine, Ph.D. student in OSU’s College of Forestry and a co-author of the Donato paper; G. Wayne Minshall, professor emeritus of biology at Idaho State University; Ted Lorensen, assistant state forester with the Oregon Department of Forestry; and Jim Karr, professor of fisheries and biology at the University of Washington.

The hearing was organized by Ringo and Sen. Frank Shields, the Portland Democrat who chairs the Natural Resources and Alternative Energy Committee.

Ringo’s request for internal OSU documents is the most recent twist in the Donato affair, which has attracted national media attention, prompted a congressional field hearing and raised issues of academic freedom and scientific integrity.

Donato, an OSU graduate student, led a study of salvage logging in the southwest Oregon area burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire. He and his eight co-authors — many affiliated with OSU — concluded that salvage logging slows forest regrowth and creates tinder that can increase fire risk.

Some professors in the College of Forestry who disagreed with Donato’s findings tried to delay publication of the study, raising concern among students and faculty about censorship. The professors said they wanted Science to wait for them to prepare a response, which they hoped would run alongside Donato’s article. The journal’s editor rejected that request.

Ringo said he’s received about 1,700 pages of Salwasser’s e-mails from OSU. He said he was “very surprised by the degree of coordination between Dean Salwasser’s office and the timber industry in managing the political and media response to the Donato fallout.”

Ringo believes that the College of Forestry should cooperate with the timber industry, but must not be beholden to it.

In the past few months, some have questioned whether the college is too deep in the industry’s pocket, since it gets 10 percent of its total budget from a logging tax. Salwasser counters that most of this money goes to general salary support, not specific research projects.

But Ringo said more reassurance is needed.

“Policy makers — both state and federal — have to have absolute confidence that the research coming out of (OSU’s College of Forestry) is objective,” Ringo said. “The college’s reaction to Donato’s research indicates it’s highly biased toward the timber industry.”

At a glance

What: Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Alternative Energy hearing

When: Hearing begins at 10 a.m. Friday, with discussion moving to issues of academic independence at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry at 1 p.m.

Where: Room HR A at the state Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E., Salem

Mary Ann Albright covers higher education. She can be reached at maryann.albright@lee.net or 758-9518.