Kulongoski Joins Biscuit Logging Fight
By Michael Milstein, The Oregonian
September 23, 2006

Days after a court decision put remote, undisturbed national forest lands off-limits to logging and development, a new legal skirmish erupted Friday over whether logging can continue on such lands in southwest Oregon.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski was on one side, an Oregon timber company on the other.

It quickly fulfilled predictions that the Wednesday ruling reinstating 2001 Clinton administration protections for so-called roadless lands would lead to more fighting about the rugged reaches.

Logging of timber burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire in the Siskiyou National Forest had already gained national attention as one of the first incursions into roadless lands after the Bush administration dropped the 2001 protections.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte this week restored the protections and ordered a halt to activities that would have violated them. But she did not explicitly mention the Oregon logging.

Bush administration officials said the logging by Silver Creek Timber Co. of Merlin would continue. It has already survived separate court fights on its own, they said.

But Kulongoski joined leaders of Washington, California and New Mexico and environmental groups Friday to argue that the Biscuit logging is "illegal and must cease." They asked for an emergency hearing to make their case.

Kulongoski has said he wants roadless lands in the state left alone.

"Logging is going on right now and at the present rate of cutting, the trees may well be logged before" the court would otherwise consider the issue, argued Kristen Boyles, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice, on behalf of other environmental groups and the states.

Silver Creek Timber joined the U.S. Forest Service in taking the other side. They contended in Friday court filings that the logging should continue because it was approved before Laporte's Wednesday ruling.

Also Friday, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth directed all agency officials not to approve any new activities that would violate the 2001 roadless rule, in accordance with Laporte's ruling.

The 2001 rule, issued in the waning days of the Clinton administration, has been at the center of a long-running legal battle. A Wyoming judge threw it out in 2003. The Bush administration then replaced it last year with a new version requiring governors to submit a petition if they want roadless areas in their states protected.

But that version is now out, with the 2001 Clinton rule back in place.

Silver Creek's attorney, Scott Horngren of Portland, told the judge Friday that the 2001 rule did not shut down logging projects under way when it was enacted, so projects under way now should not be affected either. He noted that the timber sales in southwest Oregon have survived repeated court challenges on their own.

He asked for a conference with the judge to clarify her ruling as soon as possible.

Silver Creek also filed a notice that it planned to appeal the judge's ruling restoring the 2001 roadless protections. Horngren said that if the judge did intend to stop the logging in southwest Oregon, the company wants to contest that decision.

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