BLM vs USFS vs state trust-land timber sales: how the programs differ

BLM sells western Oregon O&C timber under a 1937 sustained-yield law, the Forest Service sells national-forest timber as one use among several, and state agencies sell trust and state forest timber for revenue under their own laws. Their prices are not directly comparable, because the units, the terms and the road and restoration work all differ. Here is how the six sellers this site tracks in the Northwest compare, reported as the agencies and statutes describe them.

Why each one sells

Washington DNR manages state trust lands and sells their timber to generate revenue for named beneficiaries, K-12 school construction, state universities and county services, a trustee's duty the state's courts have affirmed. Idaho's constitution directs its land board to secure "the maximum long term financial return" from granted lands. Montana forbids selling live timber on state lands for "less than full market value." Oregon's State Forester manages Board of Forestry lands to "secure the greatest permanent value of those lands to the state," and counties share in the money.

The federal mandates read differently. National forests are administered for "outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes", so timber is one purpose among five. BLM sells from the O&C lands, which lie in a checkerboard through eighteen western Oregon counties under a 1937 law directing sustained yield, and 50 percent of the receipts goes to those counties.

How the sales differ

State sales come often: Washington DNR runs a monthly auction calendar. Federal sales come on their own schedules and can carry longer terms and heavier road and restoration work. The units split too. Washington, Oregon, Idaho and BLM mostly sell in MBF, Montana sells by the ton, and the Forest Service commonly uses CCF, though some of its sales are advertised by the ton. A price per MBF and a price per CCF are different measures of wood before you reach any difference in tract, species or terms.

Three minimums from one November

Three sales advertised for the same two weeks show why the numbers do not line up:

• Forest Service, Hobbs (DxP), Umatilla National Forest, bid opening November 10, 2026: 71,881 tons, sealed bids, a minimum of $0.93 per ton plus required deposits of $0.34 for slash and $1.87 for road maintenance per ton, under a contract running to October 10, 2033.
• Washington DNR, Battlestar, South Puget Sound Region, November 17, 2026: 7,626 MBF at a $2,193,000 minimum, or $287.57 per MBF.
• BLM, Calamity Jane, Linn County, November 18, 2026: 11,963 MBF at a $3,969,583.20 minimum, or $331.82 per MBF, by oral auction, a 36-month contract and set aside for small businesses.

Run the Hobbs arithmetic and the floor is the smallest part of the bill: 71,881 tons x $0.93 = $66,849.33 in minimum stumpage, against $158,857.01 in slash and road deposits on top of it, about 2.4 times as much. The prospectus says the rate was set by appraisal "with a cost allowance for the roads." The wood differs as well: Hobbs is mostly white fir averaging about 13 inches in diameter, and Calamity Jane is mostly Douglas-fir with an average tree of 19.5 inches. So $0.93 per ton is no bargain version of $331.82 per MBF. It is a different product in a different unit with different work attached.

Even one MBF figure depends on how it was cruised. BLM prints Calamity Jane at 11,963 MBF on 16-foot logs and 9,909 MBF on 32-foot logs, and the same minimum works out to $331.82 per MBF on the first and $400.60 on the second.

Why this site keeps them apart

The chart above stays inside one unit and one kind of seller, state green sawtimber per MBF, with a line for each agency, and the lines still sit apart. Read within an agency, not across them. Federal CCF and per-ton sales stay out of it, and the board labels every sale by agency and unit. To put a volume on a common footing yourself, the MBF to CCF converter takes a factor you set, because no single factor is exact.

Coverage differs by seller too. The BLM notices this site ingests carry advertised sales, not per-sale winning bids, so BLM sales appear on the calendar and not in results. BLM publishes bureau-wide revenue and volume totals and quarterly contract data, but not the per-sale winning bids, purchasers or no-bid outcomes a results row needs. Forest Service results here come from the Okanogan-Wenatchee, while advertised sales cover the Northwest region's other national forests. Pennsylvania's state forests sit on their own page, on a different log rule. Public-lands timber policy is contested ground, and this site reports what the agencies published and takes no side in it.