JoseCuervo
New member
Not in My Private Idaho.... But just thought I would pass along the information...
Burns tries to restart timber sales
By SHERRY DEVLIN
The Missoulian
MISSOULA – A rider quietly attached to the Interior Appropriations Bill passed by the U.S. Senate last week would allow logging to resume on five timber sales stopped by an environmentalist lawsuit against the Kootenai National Forest.
And salvage logging proposed by the Flathead National Forest in the wake of this summer’s Robert and Wedge Canyon fires would not be subject to the normal environmental reviews under the rider shepherded by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
Ron Hooper, a Burns staff member in Washington, D.C., said the rider came out of the senator’s visits to northwestern Montana in recent months and concerns of both small mill owners and Forest Service officials that they might not be able to get into the woods to salvage burned timber.
In the Kootenai forest, Hooper said, the concern was a July 1 decision by U.S. District Judge Don Molloy, halting logging in the forest because the Forest Service did not follow its own rules for maintaining old-growth trees.
The Burns rider would allow logging to resume on the Kootenai, provided the Forest Service made public information showing the volume of old-growth timber forestwide.
As long as the timber sales did not reduce old-growth below the Kootenai’s self-imposed 10 percent minimum, the Pinkham, White Pine, Kelsey-Beaver, Gold/Boulder/Sullivan and Pink Stone projects could continue.
“This gives the Forest Service a way to get back to work,” Hooper said Tuesday. “If the data shows sufficient old growth, they can go in and activate the harvesting on those five timber sales.”
Although the appropriations bill passed the Senate last week, environmentalists did not learn of the Burns rider until Tuesday. They were incensed.
“With one swoop of the pen, Conrad Burns wants to make what is illegal into something that is legal,” said Jeff Juel, conservation director of the Ecology Center, which filed the Kootenai forest lawsuit.
“Senator Burns does not have a whole lot of respect for democracy,” Juel said. “This is a backroom, closed-door deal that will exempt the Forest Service from following the law and will result in exactly the kind of damage this lawsuit was trying to prevent – environmental damage.”
The appropriations bill is now under consideration by a House-Senate conference committee. Burns is chairman of the Senate’s Interior Appropriations Subcommittee.
“Congress is protecting special interest and below-cost timber sales instead of the public interest and public lands,” said Michael Garrity, executive director of Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
The rider would exempt both the Kootenai and Flathead forests from the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act, Garrity claimed.
Most of the rider’s language addresses the Forest Service’s response to this summer’s wildfires in the North Fork Flathead.
Specifically, it would allow the Flathead forest to use an expedited review process as it looks at post-fire rehabilitation and logging in areas burned by the Wedge Canyon and Robert fires.
If an environmental impact statement was needed, the Forest Service would not have to study any alternatives to its proposed action, under the rider.
The agency would need to “encourage meaningful participation during preparation of the project,” but administrative appeals could only be filed by individuals or groups that submitted “specific and substantive” written comments during that process.
And if it were determined that an emergency existed, the decision could be implemented in spite of any appeals.
Finally, the forest could implement projects even if there was no information on the sediment load in streams – as is required under the Clean Water Act.
The lack of just such information stopped implementation of the Lolo National Forest’s post-burn logging and road repair project on 127,000 acres burned during the 2000 wildfire season.
That, too, came about because of an environmentalist lawsuit and a ruling by Molloy, and is now on appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
At Burns’ office, Hooper said the Lolo lawsuit was a factor in the rider’s wording.
But the Forest Service would still be required to use best-management practices in streamside zones, he said.
The post-fire work would actually protect, not harm, streams because it would include substantial rehabilitation and replanting in burned areas, Hooper added.
“It is critical that the agency get back into these areas this fall to stabilize the soils,” he said. “The intent here is to make this a demonstration project, to show that we can move quickly on rehabilitation.”
“The primary interest is in re-establishing the critical grizzly bear habitat destroyed by the fires,” Hooper said. “A lot of huckleberry vegetation was destroyed, and could be lost to weeds if we don’t get in there quickly enough.”
The rider was the most reliable way to get the needed language approved this fall, Hooper said.
The intent was not, however, to be secretive. In fact, Burns’ office sent out a news release last week telling of the rider and its focus on the Flathead.
The release did not mention the controversial Kootenai forest timber sales.
At the Ecology Center, Juel said his group will now go to work, trying to keep the rider out of the final Interior Appropriations Bill.
“Senator Burns is working for the Bush administration and the big corporations that are running it,” Juel said. “He’s not working for the American people, and he’s certainly not working for the state of Montana.
“This is the legacy he will leave: ravaged forests because the Forest Service doesn’t have to follow the law.”
Burns tries to restart timber sales
By SHERRY DEVLIN
The Missoulian
MISSOULA – A rider quietly attached to the Interior Appropriations Bill passed by the U.S. Senate last week would allow logging to resume on five timber sales stopped by an environmentalist lawsuit against the Kootenai National Forest.
And salvage logging proposed by the Flathead National Forest in the wake of this summer’s Robert and Wedge Canyon fires would not be subject to the normal environmental reviews under the rider shepherded by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
Ron Hooper, a Burns staff member in Washington, D.C., said the rider came out of the senator’s visits to northwestern Montana in recent months and concerns of both small mill owners and Forest Service officials that they might not be able to get into the woods to salvage burned timber.
In the Kootenai forest, Hooper said, the concern was a July 1 decision by U.S. District Judge Don Molloy, halting logging in the forest because the Forest Service did not follow its own rules for maintaining old-growth trees.
The Burns rider would allow logging to resume on the Kootenai, provided the Forest Service made public information showing the volume of old-growth timber forestwide.
As long as the timber sales did not reduce old-growth below the Kootenai’s self-imposed 10 percent minimum, the Pinkham, White Pine, Kelsey-Beaver, Gold/Boulder/Sullivan and Pink Stone projects could continue.
“This gives the Forest Service a way to get back to work,” Hooper said Tuesday. “If the data shows sufficient old growth, they can go in and activate the harvesting on those five timber sales.”
Although the appropriations bill passed the Senate last week, environmentalists did not learn of the Burns rider until Tuesday. They were incensed.
“With one swoop of the pen, Conrad Burns wants to make what is illegal into something that is legal,” said Jeff Juel, conservation director of the Ecology Center, which filed the Kootenai forest lawsuit.
“Senator Burns does not have a whole lot of respect for democracy,” Juel said. “This is a backroom, closed-door deal that will exempt the Forest Service from following the law and will result in exactly the kind of damage this lawsuit was trying to prevent – environmental damage.”
The appropriations bill is now under consideration by a House-Senate conference committee. Burns is chairman of the Senate’s Interior Appropriations Subcommittee.
“Congress is protecting special interest and below-cost timber sales instead of the public interest and public lands,” said Michael Garrity, executive director of Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
The rider would exempt both the Kootenai and Flathead forests from the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act, Garrity claimed.
Most of the rider’s language addresses the Forest Service’s response to this summer’s wildfires in the North Fork Flathead.
Specifically, it would allow the Flathead forest to use an expedited review process as it looks at post-fire rehabilitation and logging in areas burned by the Wedge Canyon and Robert fires.
If an environmental impact statement was needed, the Forest Service would not have to study any alternatives to its proposed action, under the rider.
The agency would need to “encourage meaningful participation during preparation of the project,” but administrative appeals could only be filed by individuals or groups that submitted “specific and substantive” written comments during that process.
And if it were determined that an emergency existed, the decision could be implemented in spite of any appeals.
Finally, the forest could implement projects even if there was no information on the sediment load in streams – as is required under the Clean Water Act.
The lack of just such information stopped implementation of the Lolo National Forest’s post-burn logging and road repair project on 127,000 acres burned during the 2000 wildfire season.
That, too, came about because of an environmentalist lawsuit and a ruling by Molloy, and is now on appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
At Burns’ office, Hooper said the Lolo lawsuit was a factor in the rider’s wording.
But the Forest Service would still be required to use best-management practices in streamside zones, he said.
The post-fire work would actually protect, not harm, streams because it would include substantial rehabilitation and replanting in burned areas, Hooper added.
“It is critical that the agency get back into these areas this fall to stabilize the soils,” he said. “The intent here is to make this a demonstration project, to show that we can move quickly on rehabilitation.”
“The primary interest is in re-establishing the critical grizzly bear habitat destroyed by the fires,” Hooper said. “A lot of huckleberry vegetation was destroyed, and could be lost to weeds if we don’t get in there quickly enough.”
The rider was the most reliable way to get the needed language approved this fall, Hooper said.
The intent was not, however, to be secretive. In fact, Burns’ office sent out a news release last week telling of the rider and its focus on the Flathead.
The release did not mention the controversial Kootenai forest timber sales.
At the Ecology Center, Juel said his group will now go to work, trying to keep the rider out of the final Interior Appropriations Bill.
“Senator Burns is working for the Bush administration and the big corporations that are running it,” Juel said. “He’s not working for the American people, and he’s certainly not working for the state of Montana.
“This is the legacy he will leave: ravaged forests because the Forest Service doesn’t have to follow the law.”
