Preparation for Sale

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) amends its regulations on preparation for timber sales to allow third party scaling on density management sales with an upper limit on the quadratic mean diameter at breast height (DBH) of the trees to be harvested of 20 inches. Third party scaling will be limited to the situations described in the amended provision, that is, if a timber disaster has occurred and a critical resource loss is imminent, and tree cruising and BLM scaling are inadequate to permit orderly disposal of the damaged timber, or if BLM is carrying out density management timber sales subject to the size limits stated above. Thus, third party scaling will generally not be used for sales of higher-value and/or larger diameter timber. BLM is amending the regulations in order to improve the efficiency of density management timber sales where the timber to be harvested may be designated by prescription (a written prescription included in the timber sale contract). The regulations will no longer require that BLM perform all scaling except in the event that a timber disaster is threatening imminent critical resource loss and scaling by BLM would be inadequate to permit orderly disposal of the damaged timber. In the case of density management timber sales when the quadratic mean DBH of trees to be cut and removed is equal to or less than 20 inches, the regulations will only allow third party scaling by scalers or scaling bureaus under contract to BLM.