Logging halted in Oregon area

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — A federal judge blocked logging in old growth forest reserves burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire until the U.S. Forest Service marks dead trees that must be left standing for wildlife, rather than relying on timber companies to do their work.

U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan issued a preliminary injunction blocking logging on five timber sales offered by the Siskiyou National Forest based on claims by environmental groups that the Forest Service's failure to mark the trees violates the National Forest Management Act. The law requires timber sales be marked by employees of the Secretary of Agriculture, to assure the work is done by someone with no financial interest in the outcome.

"The U.S. Forest Service bit off more of Biscuit than it could chew," said Andy Stahl, director of the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an environmental group based in Eugene and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

A lightning storm July 13, 2002, sparked four fires in the rugged Klamath Mountains of southwestern Oregon. The blazes combined into the Biscuit fire, which threatened 17,000 people in small communities of the Illinois Valley and cost $153 million to control.

The aftermath of the fire has become the focus of an intense scientific and political debate over logging and fire on the millions of acres of public lands that burn each year.

Biscuit salvage project spokeswoman Judy McHugh said the Forest Service had not decided how it would proceed; however, planners felt that between descriptions in the contract and the fact no live trees were to be cut, there was no need for marking.

Environmentalists have said the sales were not marked because the project was too big for the Siskiyou National Forest to handle alone in the time they had.

The judge did not require the Forest Service to mark buffer zones along creeks, saying they were clear from contract language.

The judge also wrote that environmentalists were not likely to win claims that the Biscuit salvage plan violates the Northwest Forest Plan by logging too heavily in old growth forest reserves, that an emergency declaration eliminating the normal administrative appeals period could not be justified solely on economic grounds, and that the plan fails to adequately protect fish from erosion associated with logging, roads and fire trails.