Posted on 08/06/2002 12:55:26 PM PDT by Grampa Dave
Wildfires spark Congress timber debate
08/06/02
MICHAEL MILSTEIN
Lawmakers are seizing on Oregon wildfires to push for stepped-up logging on the east side of the Cascades, causing environmental groups to suddenly back away from a bill they have long sought to protect old growth on the west side of the mountains.
While some Republican lawmakers and the timber industry say this summer's wildfires expose the failing health of the drier east-side forests, many environmentalists say they fear that lawmakers may "sell out" those fire-prone forests while saving the oldest remaining trees on the wetter and battle-worn west side.
"It's a divide and conquer approach," said Brett Brownscombe, conservation director for the Hells Canyon Preservation Council in La Grande. "The idea is, the environmental groups should be happy with what they get on the west side and in exchange should give up on the east side. That's not going to happen."
The dispute exposes the way wildfires crackling through the West are inflaming debate over forest management. The fires have led many in Congress to demand faster federal action on culling built-up tinder in national forests.
Environmental groups worry that will open the door to more logging overall.
"These things are all coalescing around fire," said Nathaniel Lawrence of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "I expect we'll see an extremely strong push to dramatically streamline Forest Service decision-making."
Such a push has emerged in draft legislation Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, unveiled last week. They propose putting federal forests more than 120 years old on the west side of the Cascades off-limits to logging.
That would expand reserves of older trees set aside by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. That Clinton administration compromise between logging and wildlife needs has bogged down amid lawsuits and rising calls for old-growth protection.
The proposed safeguards thrilled groups rallying to save remaining old growth. But the legislation includes a far different approach to forests in Idaho and around Bend and the rest of central and eastern Oregon and Washington.
In those drier forests of ponderosa and lodgepole pine, where wildfire is more common, local panels would identify logging projects that warrant "expedited" review because the cutting would thin forests left clogged by decades of firefighting. Such projects would then be exempt from citizen appeals that can slow logging.
Court cases would have to be decided with a presumption "in favor of" the logging projects. Environmental groups or others suing to stop cutting would have to show that their action would do as much as, or more than, the logging for "the ecological health of the forest and the social and economic well being of the community."
Environmental groups had awaited Wyden's old-growth measure for months, but they said its implications for the east side of the Cascades blindsided them.
"We were shocked to see it in there," said Jasmine Minbashian, coordinator of the Northwest Old Growth Campaign. A diverse group of activists met with Wyden in Portland on Monday to tell him the bill is unacceptable, she said.
"We had assurances no east-side language would be included," she said, "and we cannot support it this way."
Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff, said the senator's aides never gave such assurances. He said the east-side approach was vital to gain the co-sponsorship of Idaho's Craig, a leading Republican senator who can help push the legislation past Congress and the Bush administration.
"It's unlikely Senator Craig would have agreed to this if we were not also addressing legitimate forestry concerns on the east side, which is, of course, where you'll find Idaho," Kardon said.
The measure may offer the last chance to save old growth west of the Cascades, he said, because the Bush administration has pledged to accelerate logging to meet original projections of the Northwest Forest Plan.
"Both sides (environmentalists and the timber industry) have ample clout to block any legislative effort," Kardon said. "If they want another decade of gridlock, forest destruction, erosion and habitat degradation, that will be their choice."
Sen. Gordon Smith and Rep. Greg Walden, both Oregon Republicans, wrote to U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth last month asking him to rescind a rule that has barred logging of east-side trees larger than 21 inches in diameter since 1993.
The rule was meant to be temporary while land agencies completed a management plan for the Columbia River Basin but has remained in place long since, they said. Many trees have since grown past the 21-inch limit "and are, as a result of this limitation, increasing fuel loads in our national forests," they wrote.
Environmental groups said the largest trees develop thick bark that makes them the most fire-resistant and valuable for long-term forest health.
"If the goal is to reduce fire risk, you want to keep the older trees," Brownscombe said. "The Wyden bill in combination with the Walden-Smith letter is making a lot of groups nervous about what the Forest Service and Congress might do".
Or will the envirals win again with the power of the Mediots who serve the Watermelons of America?
Notice that the enviro-mafia got their wish with the Northwest Forest plan, but they couldn't even let that be. Right after it was passed they began filing court cases to prevent even the tiny remaining amount of logging that would have been permitted under the plan.
Required link to the solution.
Crapooollaaaa. Yah, let's give more land up to the virals, they've done such a good job on the East side they deserve a shot on the West side too.
EBUCK
Quote of the day.
I really like the sound of this, although I'm leary of giving up the west side.
said Jasmine Minbashian, coordinator of the Northwest Old Growth Campaign.
She and Kieran Suckling (from the ranch thread) should have a contest for weirdest eco-freak name. Where in the world do these pukes come from. Its similar to all the radical Islamic dudes, they all have one eye, no eyes or some other deformity.
No argument there. I'm just wondering how much traction it will have. I personally think NOTHING will happen from any quarter. It's very frustrating to watch our country go up/down in flames.
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