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OVERCAST Temp: 51 °F Wind: WNW at 7 mph Wednesday, February 19, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend July 9, 2002 Environmental activists gather Monday in front of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's office at the federal courthouse in Medford to protest a U.S. Forest Service timber program that exchanges sales planned on coastal forests for sales on inland forests. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Timber exchange ignites protest A sign-carrying crowd opposed to trading coastal for inland logging sales holds a demonstration outside U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s Medford office By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune Waving signs and beating drums, more than two dozen demonstrators gathered Monday in front of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s Medford office to oppose a U.S. Forest Service timber program. The demonstration was a response to the Democrat’s recent appearance in the Rogue Valley in which he asked constituents to let him know what they think of the agency’s replacement volume timber program. Launched in 1995, it exchanges coastal logging sales on federal forestland inhabited by the marbled murrelet, a threatened seabird, for sales of similar value and volume on national forests inland. "They are trading old-growth timber for second-growth timber. ... This is an endangered species shell game," said demonstrator George Sexton, conservation director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center. "We’re being asked to pay the price for the Siuslaw (National) Forest drawing up illegal timber sales," he added. "Our watershed is being sacrificed." That was a reference to the Silver-Sturgis timber sale, which would log nearly 9 million board feet of timber in the Applegate Ranger District, and the Peak timber sale, which would log nearly 4 million board feet in the Prospect Ranger District. The two sales are part of some 45 million board feet to be cut in the Rogue River National Forest in exchange for a similar amount on the Siuslaw. Citing the threat to spotted owls and other inland creatures, environmental groups, including the wildlands center and Ashland-based Headwaters, have sued to halt the Peak sale. They say they will take the Forest Service to court over the Silver-Sturgis sale. "There is no consensus that it’s legal," Sexton said of the program. "There is a consensus that it’s not right," he added. Cindy Deacon Williams, forest watch monitor for the Headwaters, agreed. "We view this program as a gorilla around the neck of the Forest Service," said Williams, who was not at Monday’s demonstration. "We would prefer to have the original sales be bought back or replaced with a plantation thin volume." The program exports the problem of one forest to another, she said. "It’s really putting an extraordinary burden on a forest to have to make up this volume," she said. The timber industry has another perspective. "The purchasers agreed to exchange for comparable volume and value — they did it on a good-faith agreement," said David Hill, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association. "The government agreed to those exchanges," he added. "It should meet the terms of those agreements. This is simply a matter of government making good on its promise." John Fertig, acting timber staff officer for the Rogue River and Siskiyou forests, says it’s incorrect to refer to the trees being exchanged as old- growth timber. "There are some big trees in some of our sales," he said. "But the size of material they are getting from us are smaller in diameter than those for the Siuslaw. Most of the sales are roughly the same age." Trees on the coastal forest tend to grow faster than inland trees, he noted. Moreover, he observed that the program was mandated by Congress and the courts. Congress had instructed the agency to either award the timber which included marbled murrelet habitat or replace it, he said. When the agency didn’t replace them, it was successfully sued by the timber industry and told by the federal court to replace the sales, he said. The planned logging on the Rogue River forest is being done with a lighter touch than the planned Siuslaw sales, he said. "We are replacing all clearcut and cable logging," he said, adding that much of the replacement volume on the Rogue River forest includes thinning and helicopter logging. Wyden Chief of Staff Josh Kardon said the senator, along with U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, has repeatedly spoken out against replacing second-growth timber with large old timber inland. "But this administration has made it clear they intend to go forward with logging old growth," Kardon said. "The senator has proposed ending logging of old growth in the Pacific Northwest and concentrating on restoration forestry." Wyden anticipates introducing legislation to accomplish that goal, Kardon said. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy webmaster feedback A D V E R T I S E R S