CASCADE — When the Boise Cascade mill closed here a decade ago, Herb Malany and John McCarthy sat on opposite sides of the forest wars.

The shutdown turned off an economic engine that had transformed trees into jobs, and funneled 25 percent of the federal timber receipts to local schools and counties. And Boise Cascade workers knew one guy they blamed: They took a bus to Boise to protest outside of McCarthy’s Idaho Conservation League office.

Cut to this May.

Malany, a retired Boise Cascade forester, and McCarthy, now a Wilderness Society representative, carpooled home from Cascade after spending a day together shelling out federal money to local projects in their roles as members of the Southwest Idaho Resource Advisory Committee.

The money comes from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act — better- known as Craig-Wyden, after the two Northwest senators who championed the idea to replace the drastically dwindled timber sale receipts that once buoyed many rural counties and school districts that had large tracts of federal timberlands and little private land for a property tax base.

An average of around $13.7 million a year has come to Idaho through the program, and 80 percent of these funds are sent directly to the counties and schools. But for the eight years since the program began, 20 percent of the money has been handed out for local priorities by these resource advisory committees, made up of local officials, sportsmen, unions, recreation groups, environmental groups and others.

But with deep federal budget cuts coming, the future of the Secure Rural Schools funds is in doubt — along with other programs that have grown up to help these now-united groups cut trees, obliterate roads and provide needed work for rural communities.

The House voted to continue the funding for Secure Schools, but without the funds for the RACs — shorthand for “resource advisory councils.”

“This could fall through the cracks, because outside of four Western states, who cares about the RACs?” Malany said.

WORKING TOGETHER

May’s meeting in Cascade included discussions about trail maintenance, road improvements to reduce erosion to help fish habitat work and equipment such as a front-end loader proudly shown off by Valley County’s Road superintendent Jerry Robinson. Members took turns riding on the loader — except for the environmentalist McCarthy.

“I didn’t want the picture to go viral on the Internet,” he quipped.

The RAC was set up so any one member of the panel could veto a project. That forced the former enemies to find ways to work together.

“Nobody can roll somebody else,” McCarthy said.

The process helped them develop trust and personal relationships that have fostered a collaborative approach toward forest issues they used to fight about. Now, McCarthy and other environmentalists are supporting a biomass plant that Council Superintendent Murray Dalgleish said is critical to the economic future of his Adams County community, surrounded by the Payette National Forest.

The plant would turn small-diameter trees — too thin to be used for lumber — and other “woody biomass” into power. The big trees in the forest remain intact, loggers have jobs, and forest supervisors can direct the thinning to areas that pose catastrophic wildfire threats or butt up against populated areas.

“Our economy has got to be based on natural resources; we don’t have a choice,” Dalgleish said.

FINDING THE RIGHT FUTURE

The program was aimed at easing rural communities into a new economic future after years of depending on revenues tied directly to logging levels in the national forest.

But hardly any of the forested part of Idaho, from Idaho City to Bonners Ferry, has seen an industry replace the steady funding logging had from the 1950s to 1995.

Valley County has been on a roller coaster since the Boise Cascade mill closed. Tamarack Resort replaced much of the economic activity for a time — and drastically raised property values (good for the county coffers, tough for longtime residents who wanted a house, not a potential investment).

But when the economy and the resort busted, the jobs and many of the revenues for the county and schools dried up.

“I think what people have lost sight of is how natural resources created a sustainable economy in these rural communities,” said Gordon Cruickshank, Valley County Commission chairman.

He has gone back to Washington, D.C., every year since he was elected to lobby to keep the Secure Schools program alive. He also has joined McCarthy and others at the table on the Payette Forest Coalition, a collaborative group aimed specifically at attracting more federal funding for logging, prescribed burning and other management projects.

Together, they support Council’s biomass plant and the Emerald timber mill built with stimulus dollars in Emmett. Cruickshank would like to see longer-term contracts for timber on public lands — to attract more investment capital to forest towns such as Cascade.

“If you can find the supply, the infrastructure will come,” he said.

Congress established the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program in 2010 to fund projects that collaborative groups such as the one in the Payette Forest support.

The Clearwater Basin Collaborative, set up by Sen. Mike Crapo to work on the Clearwater and Nez Perce national forests, got $3.4 million this year from the program, which could continue for 10 years if Congress doesn’t cut it.

The Obama administration spread $22 million between nine states under the program this year. But despite its efforts, the Payette Forest Coalition didn’t get anything.

Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League serves as co-chairman of the collaborative’s rural economic development committee, which is trying to find a balanced approach to development that improves the health of the land, the economy and the community, he said.

“If any one of these things is ignored, it doesn’t work,” Oppenheimer said.

Along with Crapo, Idaho’s congressional delegation has been supportive of the collaboratives. Crapo voted against Secure Schools when it was tagged on to the TARP bailout funding bill, but he supports it.

Participants have been waiting to see how freshman Republican Rep. Raul Labrador, a tea party favorite, will support the programs that are so tied to federal spending.

“I know how important the Secure Rural Schools program has been to Idaho, and certainly the Resource Advisory Committees which have done and continue to do great work in our rural communities,” Labrador said in a statement. “Because funding continues to be tight for many popular programs, my first priority is to allow local communities access to the forests so they can generate their own revenues as they once did.”

THERE ARE STILL TWO SIDES

The consensus ends where people want to streamline environmental laws or return to the system where a part of timber receipts goes to local governments. Oppenheimer said the ICL and others support additional payments in lieu of taxes for local governments — another federal program aimed at helping the counties with large swaths of public lands — but oppose any link between logging and more funding.

That system encouraged over-logging that led to environmental degradation, he said.

“It created this litigation firestorm that led to effectively bringing down a lot of work in the woods,” he said.

But that doesn’t stop timber supporters such as Malany from seeking a route that could reduce the need for declining federal funds to do the work both sides support.

“There’s plenty of money here standing out in our forests if we’re willing to cut it,” he said.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484