In the heart of rural Washington logging country, a county commissioner is pushing a plan to use the threat of wildfires to funnel timber revenue from a national forest into the county’s struggling budget. With support from the Fund, Columbia Insights uncovered the plan to expand fuel breaks, strips of land where trees and other vegetation are removed or thinned to limit the spread of fire, and then use federal funding from the expansion to bolster the county’s budget for basic services.
Local official pushes to redirect federal timber revenue into county coffers
