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'Chronic' violations will cost logger The state closes down 'Vic' Masters until he pays fines and fixes damage By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune A Southern Oregon man considered to be one of the state's most habitual violators of logging laws for private lands has been shut down indefinitely until he pays more than $22,700 in fines for illegal logging over the past three years in southwestern Oregon. Nathaniel "Vic" Masters, 77, of Azalea, was banned this week from any new forest-related work on Oregon private land until he pays the fines and repairs the damage his operation has inflicted on the environment, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. The seven outstanding violations are for illegally driving logging equipment in streams, cutting too many trees, not building temporary stream crossings and leaving areas open for excess erosion. In most of the cases, the damage was not repaired. The fines involve a 75-acre clearcut near Azalea in 1998 and an 80-acre partial cut last year near Sunny Valley. "These aren't just administrative violations," said Dan Thorpe, the state's Medford Unit forester. "These are violations that have harmed the environment." State forestry spokesman Rod Nichols said this type of order, based on a 1997 state law, has been used just four times to get "chronic" violators in line. Masters has been cited for at least 19 logging violations in the past decade. He was the first Oregonian to violate the state's 120-acre clearcut limitation enacted in 1991. Masters, who logged for years out of Medford but who recently has lived in Josephine and Douglas counties, also has a history of not paying fines without state pressure. " 'Chronic' is not a technical term, but you can see from the list that there's quite a track record there," Nichols said. "He's one of the most prolific, in terms of total violations." Masters, who has yet to be notified by state officials of the order, said some of the unpaid fines "aren't deserving" for a 60-year logging veteran who worked his first 50 years trouble-free. Masters also blamed his current problems on what he claims is a state foresters' vendetta against him over 1992's fabled clearcut case, in which he was fined $10,000 for clearcutting a 320-acre parcel of timber that was eventually shipped to Japan. "That was a bum deal, and I've had trouble with them ever since then," Masters said Friday. "They've been real aggressive with me, and they've not listened to me at all." Thorpe said state foresters have come to know Masters well because of his misdeeds, not any misunderstandings. "Certainly we're paying attention to how he operates," Thorpe said. "It's nothing about us trying to get him. It's to get the job done right." The state order, signed Thursday, technically bans Masters from starting any new logging on his own property or as a contractor on other private lands until he pays the fines and fixes the damage. Masters said he currently has no open operations, so the ban effectively shuts him down. In the 1998 case, Masters was ordered to pay civil penalties of $1,800 for illegally operating equipment in a stream bed, $1,500 for failing to build water diversions and $3,500 for failing to drain roads. He fixed the damage done to the stream bed and built the required water diversions, but he never drained the roadway as required or paid the fines, Thorpe said. In last year's Sunny Valley case, Masters tallied $15,925 in fines for failing to: leave wildlife trees, snags or logs; build a stream crossing; remove a temporary crossing; and install erosion-reduction waterbars after the logging was done, the order states. None of those violations were corrected, nor have the fines been paid, Thorpe said. Masters did not object to the 1998 violations but said he did not deserve the violations for last year's Sunny Valley logging. Once he receives notification, Masters said he will turn it over to his attorney and seek to get the fines reduced. Masters' troubles with state foresters began when he broke the revised Forest Practices Act in late 1991 and early 1992 while logging a 320-clearcut on the Dead Indian Plateau, from which about 2.5 million board feet of timber was exported to Japan. Masters had clearcut about 268 acres when the new act went into effect and set a clearcut size limit of 120 contiguous acres on any piece of land owned by the same person or corporation. But the law allows clearcuts to abut each other if they are on adjacent land owned by different people or companies. To finish his 320-acre operation, Masters subdivided the property and deeded the uncut acres to another family-owned business, then finished the clearcut. But a Mail Tribune report in 1992 revealed an overlap in official ownership of the family-owned companies, leading state foresters to consider Masters' actions illegal and Masters was cited in 1993. Masters was fined $10,000, which he paid and resumed logging later that year. But the problems did not stop. Masters, who has owned land and logged under several business names, was cited for seven violations and fined $3,700 later in 1993. After he failed to pay the fines, the state won a judgment against Masters and garnished his log receipts at a local mill until the fine was paid, Nichols said. In 1996, he was cited for three violations, but the land trusts under which Masters owned the property dissolved before any fines could be levied, Nichols said. Masters was clean of violations in 1997. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.