The salvage rider is a sneaky two-pronged assault on the best of what's left of our public native forests. The first prong of this devilish fork is the new "Emergency Salvage Timber Sale Program" which affects nearly every national forest across the country. Hiding behind the facade of "forest health", the timber industry and the government will try to right all wrongs caused by their previous mismanagement of public forests with more logging. The other evil prong revives all the old controversial sales that were shelved due to legal challenge and/or the presence of Northern Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet. The rider in combination with Clinton's Northwest forest plan (Option 9) is a brazen attempt to cut the last remains of our ancient cathedral forests west of the Cascade crest.
Under subsections (b) and (c) of the rider, the "completion" and "expedited procedures for emergency salvage timber sales" release timber across the country at a volume that could only be achieved through the suspension of federal laws. The rider applies to both the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Total USFS volume figures (BLM figures are not available), according to an agency report to congress, top four billion board feet. A contribution to this volume comes from nearly every national forest.
Regional and individual forest timber volume break-downs, show that the focus of the first flank of the attack is on vast stretches of native forest, many of which are in roadless areas in Montana and Idaho. Region 1, Northern, plans to extract over 627 million board feet (MMBF) and Region 4, Intermountain, will cut nearly 700 MMBF. In Region 1, the forests producing the big volumes are the Clearwater, which targets 105 MMBF, and the Idaho Panhandle at 115 MMBF. The volume shocker is the Kootenai which will annihilate 235 MMBF. The Bitterroot, with a comparatively small volume of 17 MMBF, will open large tracts of roadless land. In Region 4 the forests that jump off the list with large volumes are the Boise with an unfathomable 288.5 MMBF, and the Payette which will go after 173.5 MMBF. Much of the volume from these regions will fragment our precious roadless areas rendering them ineligible for future wilderness designation.
By comparison Region 2, Rocky Mountain, plans to extract less than 96 MMBF, and Region 3, Southwest, is shooting for 61 MMBF. Region 8, Southern, has a target of over 307 MMBF of which a significant part--over 149 MMBF--comes from Mississippi. The volume here is exorbitantly high for the region probably due to the increase in chip mill operations in the area. Region 9, Eastern, is pushing just over 218 MMBF. Most of the individual forest's volumes in these regions are smaller than a single timber sale in the Northwest. While these smaller volumes are probably not a motivating factor behind the rider, they are not insignificant. The ecological effects of the smaller volumes in these regions could be just as devastating because of the smaller size of these forests.
The big push in the West under the new "Emergency Salvage Program" targets the forests in the eastern parts of Washington, Oregon, and California. These are mostly national forests that cover vast areas and have considerable amounts of fragile old-growth Ponderosa Pine. The misconception is that fire suppression, high-grading, and other mismanagement can be fixed by logging out the biomass these systems actually need to recover. It is not a forest health problem in these regions, it's a soil health problem. Region 5, Pacific Southwest, will target over 818 MMBF. In this region the Lassen will try to remove the most volume with 157.7 MMBF and the Tahoe a close second with nearly 143 MMBF. The Klamath and Modoc will also provide considerable volume. And once again, the volume leader is Region 6, Pacific Northwest, which will go after nearly 1,139 MMBF. Yes, that's over a billion board feet, a quarter of the national volume produced by the rider! In Region 6, the Deschutes with nearly 179 MMBF, the Wenatchee with over 158 MMBF, and the Malheur with 154 MMBF top the list.
The billion-plus board feet that the new "Emergency Salvage Program" provides is only one-half of the madness that the rider imposes on the Northwest. If the timber industry gets its way, and U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan continues to aid and abet it, we are in serious trouble. (This is the same judge who ruled against us at Warner Creek and has rendered a number of other heinous decisions. He has, in fact, never ruled against the timber industry.) If Hogan rules against the threatened and endangered birds in a case that is still pending, and the appeals court upholds his decisions, the worst case scenario will be upon us. Under this scenario, nearly 1.1 billion board feet (1,099 MMBF) from 184 shelved timber sales, could be added to the volume released by the rider.
This additional volume is the result of subsection (k) of the rider which is the other prong of the attack. If Hogan again rules in favor of the timber industry, he will release every formerly illegal USFS and BLM timber sale in the states of Oregon and Washington. Many of these old timber sales are "Section 318 sales" [ note #1] and have already been partially cut. The remaining units were determined to be "occupied" by Spotted Owls or Marbled Murrelets and were therefore spared. (Note that the volumes quoted here are on the high side. The USFS was only able to provide the original, pre-cut volumes for all the sales.)
Subsection (k) paragraph (1) mandates the "318 sales" be logged "with no change in the originally advertised terms, volumes, and bid prices, all timber sale contracts offered or awarded before that date in any unit of the National Forest System or district of the Bureau of Land Management subject to section 318 of Public Law 101-121." With regards to rare birds, subsection (k) paragraph (2) states that "No sale unit shall be released or completed under this subsection if any threatened or endangered bird species is known to be nesting (emphasis mine) within the acreage that is the subject of the sale unit". The timber industry lawyers and lobbyists that wrote this bill were very careful with their word choice. "Occupancy" for Marbled Murrelets is currently determined by the behavioral pattern of circling above the nesting area. However industry argues that "known to be nesting" is defined by finding egg shell fragments and fecal rings high in the old-growth canopy where the Murrelet lays its egg on a mossy branch without actually building a nest. Evidence of the nest is almost impossible to find without climbing every tree. Usually industry politicizes science, but this time it just created its own definition. So with this interpretation the loggers will actually get most of the Marbled Murrelet occupied units.
But industry wasn't satisfied with that either. Subsection (k) paragraph (3) will "provide the purchaser an equal volume of timber, of like kind and value" if it is in fact "known to be nested" by a Murrelet. The word "kind" was also carefully chosen. They don't just get equal value, they get big fat trees. In the case of the Siuslaw National Forest (Coast Range) the District Ranger actually stated that the replacement volume just doesn't exist! Just the Coast Range "318 sales" are said to represent 25% of all remaining Marbled Murrelet nesting habitat in the lower 48 states. The USFS "318 sales", with known nesting sites of threatened and endangered bird species, add up to over 408 MMBF. It is a volume of old growth the timber industry made sure it would not have to give up. The total volume of "318 sales" from both BLM and USFS that could be released by the rider add up to nearly 751.4 MMBF. The "318 sales" represent the best of what is left of the classic old-growth habitat, and it is this volume of giant trees--worth top dollar on the export market or as veneer--that has the timber industry drooling!
A look at the sales West of the Cascades, or in the range of the Northern Spotted Owl, based on the President's Northwest Forest Plan is also revealing. The President likes to claim that he ended the "gridlock" over logging in this region. In fact he simply loosened the jammed logs which are once again flowing to the mills and the export docks. LESS THAN HALF of the older, multistory forests left in the owl's range got the supposed protection of the President's plan (and that's only if you ignore the salvage and forest health loopholes of the Late Successional Reserve guidelines in the Record of Decision).
The data contained in the Federal Ecosystem Management Assessment Team's study (FEMAT) is the most comprehensive inventory of owl forests. It was used to create the new forest plan. The closest category FEMAT uses that approximates ancient forests is "medium/large conifer multi-story" which is defined as stands characterized by trees 21 inches in diameter or larger. At the time of FEMAT, only 4.5 million acres of this "medium/large conifer multi-story" forest existed in the owl's range in California, Oregon, and Washington. Out of that 4.5 million acres, the Late-Successional Reserves (LSR), and the Riparian Reserves created by Option 9, account for only 2 million acres. About a million acres of this older, multi-storied forest became Matrix and Adaptive Management Areas (AMA), which can be allocated to intensive logging. The remaining "multi-storied" forests in the Matrix are already taking a hard hit. The remaining 1.5 million acres are primarily wilderness, parks, or Administratively withdrawn areas. But these aren't protected either. Their fate just hasn't been decided yet.
Late Successional Reserves are comprised of only 23% "medium/large conifer multi-story" forests! The LSRs cover 7 million acres of which only 1.6 million are "medium/large conifer multi-story" forests. The rest is mostly plantations and recovering forests. Add to this fact that nearly all the "318 sales" in the Mt. Baker/Snoqualmie, Olympic, Siskiyou, Siuslaw, and Willamette National Forests are in these supposedly protected Late Successional Reserves--and will be cut under the rider--and it is clear that we were swindled.
My biggest fear is that some of the more moderate and visible factions of the environmental community (nationals and larger regional groups) support the President's plan, and even support his re-election, in a misguided hope of killing the rider. This is entirely unacceptable behavior for those who are supposed to be advocates for the environment. Ninety-five of our native forests have already been destroyed and half of the ancient forests remaining on the west side of the Cascades are being released to logging by the President's unconscionable plan. Meanwhile, much of the best of what's left of our old-growth, supposedly in reserves under the new plan, is being logged by the salvage rider.
Let's not forget whose signature made the rider law and began the final feeding frenzy in our federal forests. The USFS and BLM have proven that they were unable to obey the law when there were laws in our public forests. It was because the USFS consistently lost in court that the rider was created. We simply cannot trust the agency to do the right thing. The obvious solution to "Logging Without Laws" is Laws Without Logging!
For information on how YOU can help the zero-cut campaign contact the author at Native Forest Council, P.O. Box 2190, Eugene, OR 97402. Ph. 541-688-2600, Fax 541-461-2156, e-mail: zerocut2@aol.com.
FINAL NOTE -- The day after this article went to print Judge Hogan ruled again in the never ending saga of ecosystem destruction. However, in the long run this ruling may actually do more good than harm. Subsection (d) of the rider specifically states that Option 9 cannot be enforced. It is probably better that the public, and the environmental community for that fact, accept the reality that Option 9 doesn't protect our forests. Presently there are no restrictions on logging in the Northwest, but they never obeyed the law anyway. The funny thing is that on a mark up of this article a friend wrote "he would sell his own mother". Well, not quite -- but almost! One of the timber sales in the lawsuit that resulted in this decision surrounds Barklow Mountain in Southwestern Oregon where Hogan spent much time as a youth. This mountain was named after Hogan's grandfather, a former county commissioner. Hogan remarked, "Personally I wish the Forest Service never sold any of that (timber)." Holding to the letter of the law, Hogan sold out his grandfather's name sake!
note #1-These sales are the result of the last sufficiency rider (called section 318) that Sen. Hatfield and his cohorts constructed back in 1989. That rider deemed some 8 billion board feet of timber sales sufficiently in compliance with the nation's environmental laws, or in other words exempt from these laws. Seven billion of these board feet had to come from the habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl and pushed the owl to the verge of extinction. Some of these sales were never cut or were only partially cut. Many of these remaining sales (or units) owe their existence to the occupancy of another federally listed threatened species, the Marbled Murrelet. We know that these sales represent some of the best old-growth habitat left because that is what it takes to support these species.