Governor Asks Forest Service to Hold Off Biscuit Salvage Logging
By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
April 14, 2005

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Gov. Ted Kulongoski asked the U.S. Forest Service to hold off selling timber killed by the 2002 Biscuit fire in areas that were put off-limits to logging during the Clinton administration.

In a letter to Regional Forester Linda Goodman dated April 1, the governor argued that logging in so-called roadless areas before a lawsuit brought by environmentalists is decided violates the public trust at a time when tensions are already high over cutting old growth forests.

Kulongoski added that his own administrative challenge to the logging plan raised issues similar to those in the lawsuit, which he felt had a good chance of prevailing in court.

“He feels it would really be in Oregon’s best interest and the Forest Service’s best interest to wait,” Mike Carrier, the governor’s natural resources adviser, said Wednesday.

Last month when demonstrators were trying to stop logging in old growth forest reserves burned by Biscuit, the Siskiyou National Forest said it expected to offer the first of the timber sales in roadless areas before the end of March. But there has been no new word on when the first auction would be scheduled.

“Right now the plans are to go ahead and offer (the timber sale),” said Rex Holloway, spokesman for the Forest Service Northwest regional office in Portland. “But as far as when, that what’s in question right now.”

Sparked by lightning, the Biscuit fire burned 500,000 acres in the summer of 2002. It has since become a battleground — with the Bush administration and the timber industry on one side, and environmental groups and some Democrats on the other — over how best to restore the forest and habitat critical to the northern spotted owl and salmon.

Under pressure from the timber industry, the Siskiyou National Forest greatly expanded its original plans for cutting fire-killed timber to pay for restoration, moving beyond lands designated primarily for logging into old growth reserves designated primarily for fish and wildlife habitat and roadless areas.

Don Smith of the Siskiyou Regional Education Project, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the Forest Service appears to be waiting to sell timber in roadless areas until the Bush administration’s new policy opening roadless areas to logging goes into effect later this year.

“My reading of this essentially is that the government is using the Biscuit project to legitimize the revised roadless rule,” said Smith. “It wants to get in the judicial system what it can’t get in the court of public opinion.”

While many scientists believe leaving big old trees to rot and die is crucial to regenerating a healthy forest that is also good fish and wildlife habitat, some contend that the process can be quickened by selling timber to pay for replanting and brush control.

Roadless areas are large tracts of national forest land that have never been logged, primarily because they have been too remote and rugged to be economical. Before leaving office, President Clinton adopted a policy putting them off-limits to logging on grounds they were more valuable to protect water quality and fish and wildlife habitat.

Arguing the old roadless rule was vacated by a U.S. District Court ruling in Wyoming, the Bush administration has been working to offer a revised rule, which would give governors and states a role in deciding whether to open specific areas to logging. Kulongoski has formally opposed the new rule.

Environmentalists contend that a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling has upheld the Clinton roadless rule.

Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said large logs in the roadless areas are valuable for veneer and engineered wood products. Removing them by helicopter will raise money to pay for forest restoration.

“The environmental community agenda for Biscuit from the get-go is delay and obstruct,” West said. “They are wasting not only public resources but delaying recovery of the fire area and should be held responsible for their actions.”

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