FW: [NFPA] Timber groups sue to speed Biscuit salvage logging

If this one doesn't really take the cake, I don't know what the hell
would!
 
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Matthew Koehler
Sent: July 10, 2004 1:16 PM
To: [email protected]; forests-j47nTgNa/[email protected]
Subject: [NFPA] Timber groups sue to speed Biscuit salvage logging


July 10, 2004 

Timber groups sue to speed Biscuit salvage logging
By PAUL FATTIG
Medford Mail Tribune

A lawsuit over salvaging timber from the Biscuit fire was filed Friday
in U.S. District Court in Portland - not by environmentalists, as many
had expected, but by the timber industry.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene a day after the U.S.
Forest Service signed off on decisions allowing the timber salvage sales
to move forward.

The litigation is an effort to speed up the process of restoring areas
burned by the half-million-acre 2002 fire, explained a spokesman for the
nonprofit American Forest Resource Council, a group representing forest
landowners and forest product mill owners.

Others joining in the lawsuit were the Rough & Ready Lumber Co., the
Swanson Group, South Coast Lumber Co., Jim Nolan, Jim Frick, Oak Flat
LLC and Indian Hill LLC.

In a prepared statement, council president Tom Partin indicated the
group had been reluctant to litigate.

"But simply too much time has been wasted and critical wildlife
habitats, key watersheds and rural communities are at stake to allow
this process to be bogged down by environmental groups who oppose forest
restoration in the area of the Biscuit fire," he stated.

Noting the value of the fire-killed trees is diminishing daily, Partin
stated that environmental groups have been threatening litigation and
civil disobedience to stop the salvage.

"If we're really serious about habitat restoration, we need to get busy
and that is what this lawsuit is about," the statement said.

He did not explain, however, how the lawsuit would speed up restoration
efforts. A call to his office was not returned late Friday afternoon.

The Forest Service doesn't comment on lawsuits, said Judy McHugh,
spokeswoman for the Biscuit fire recovery project.

Joseph Vaile, a biologist with the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center,
one of the environmental groups opposed to the proposed salvage of some
370 million board feet of timber from the Siskiyou National Forest, said
it was ironic the timber industry filed the first suit involving the
salvage project.

"We're looking to protect values that most Americans want to protect:
old-growth trees, roadless areas and salmon-bearing watersheds," he
said. "If logging in old- growth, roadless areas and salmon-bearing
streams is still not enough for them, I don't think they will ever be
satisfied."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at
[email protected]

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