The Josephine County Board of Commissioners has delayed a deal to sell 320 acres of prime county forestland near Williams for conservation.

Commissioners John West and Herman Baertschiger Jr. want assurances that the land, known as Pipe Fork, will not be logged and will remain open to the public. They delayed signing a land sales contract on Tuesday.

The complex deal, for $2.32 million, would have sold the property to a Virginia-based conservation organization, The Conservation Fund, that plans to then sell it to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, with the expectation that the property would be used as a research area connected with rare Port-Orford-cedar trees.

But the conservation organization can’t guarantee what the BLM might do with the property, which is next to BLM property designated as a natural research area. Its 320 acres equates to an area a half-mile square. Pipe Fork Creek runs through it.

“I believe their intention is to study and maintain that area and not log it,” Kaola Swanson, a program manager with The Conservation Fund, told commissioners meeting in the Anne Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass.

“But you don’t have a guarantee from the Bureau of Land Management?” Baertschiger asked. “Those are assumptions?”

Baertschiger wants a BLM representative to tell them about the agency’s intentions. Both Baertschiger and West wondered if the BLM might some day close the area to public access in order to protect it from a disease that attacks the trees. Swanson said she would expect any closures to be temporary.

“It perplexes me that this group doesn’t have as much concern as the commissioners over this not being able to be left open,” West said.

Four years ago, the county itself planned to log the property, but the Williams community rallied to protect it as a way to maintain clean water and preserve a favored place to visit and take in nature. Commissioners then paused their logging plans while a deal was pursued, culminating in a contract put before the board Tuesday that would have The Conservation Fund put up $2.02 million while the Williams Community Forest Project chipped in $300,000 for the purchase, with the intention to quickly sell it to the U.S. government.

Commissioner Dan DeYoung supported moving forward with the sale, but West and Baertschiger didn’t second his motion. If the sale doesn’t go through, DeYoung said, “then it goes back to being logged.”