A board that regulates logging has rejected a proposal by small-forest landowners to shrink buffers between streams and tree-cutting, sparking a one-man protest.

After the vote Nov. 9, Ken Miller, of the Washington Farm Forestry Association, sat at a microphone and compared the majority of the Forest Practices Board to “emperors drunk on power.”

He vowed to keep talking and said disruption may be all that’s left for politically weak small-forest landowners. The board recessed and reconvened in another room to finish the meeting.

“They left me alone in the building,” Miller said in a phone interview. “We don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re just exasperated.”

The vote capped a seven-year campaign by the forestry association to allow non-commercial forest landowners to harvest more timber.

The current regulations result in 90- to 200-foot buffers, Millers said. The forestry association proposed 50- to 75-foot buffers, depending on the width of the stream.

Pointing to scientific studies, small-forest landowners asserted that the narrower buffers would still protect fish, water and wildlife and help landowners resist selling forests to developers.

The proposal received four votes from board members connected to logging or the Washington State Association of Counties.

They were outvoted by eight members from conservation groups, state agencies and tribes.

The proposal would have applied to small-forest landowners in Western Washington who harvest less than 2 million board-feet a year. They currently log under the same buffer rules as commercial timber companies.

Leading up to the meeting, dozens of small-forest landowners wrote the board letters, saying they were good stewards of the land and that the current rules were a financial hardship.

Miller said he was confident the forestry association had built a strong, scientific case, though some small-forest landowners told him that he was fighting a hopeless battle.

“If they’re following today’s events, they’re saying, ‘I told you so,’” Miller said.

A policy committee that reports to the Forest Practices Board looked at the studies and the forestry’s association proposals, but was unable to come to a single recommendation.

A minority supported the proposal, but a majority reported that current buffer regulations were not strict enough.

The Washington Hardwoods Association stated in a letter to the board that mills need timber from small-forest landowners and that smaller buffers would be as effective in protecting fish.