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CLOUDY Temp: 57 °F Wind: SE at 13 mph Tuesday, April 29, 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 April 3, 2003 Water proposals surface for forest plan By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune The proposed rewording of the Northwest Forest Plan’s aquatic conservation strategy is either a refreshing splash of common sense or further watering down of environmental laws by the Bush administration. That is the initial reaction to the draft supplemental environmental impact statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The agencies propose changes in the aquatic portion of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, enacted by the Clinton administration to end the war over federal timberlands in the Northwest. The agencies are taking comments on the proposed changes through July 10. The agencies say there are no changes in the plan’s objectives to protect riparian areas, only word changes to reflect the plan’s original intent. The timber industry believes the proposal is sound; environmentalists soundly disagree. David Hill, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, believes the word changes will allow temporary disturbances in a riparian zone to produce long-term benefits. "That’s a good idea, one well worth a wording change in the Northwest Forest Plan," Hill said. "If you produce a temporary disturbance, you can still get some work done in that zone." As it stands now, Hill said, the riparian zone restrictions block work which would not only allow responsible logging but also reduce the impact of a catastrophic fire. For instance, thinning on hillsides over a stream can reduce a fire’s impact, thus reducing erosion and other problems, he said. "If you are trying to protect a riparian zone from wildfires, it sounds like a common sense approach, as opposed to nothing getting done now," he said. "It’s difficult to say that any type of work won’t cause some temporary disturbance, but if the work will produce some long-term gain, it seems to me it would be a benefit down the road," he added. But Dominick DellaSala, an ecologist heading the World Wildlife Fund’s Klamath-Siskiyou Program, says the rewording is part of a larger effort by the Bush administration to weaken environmental laws. The result will further destroy salmon populations and Oregon’s remaining clear streams. "This administration knows precisely how to dismantle key forest policies provisions," he said. "They have been doing it behind the scenes and in obscure rule-making without any congressional action." The result of actions such as rewording the aquatic conservation strategy ultimately will have a huge impact on the environment in the Northwest, he said. The buffers in the strategy are intended to protect slopes adjacent to streams to reduce sediment to aid the salmon, he said. "They are doing this one rule at a time," he said. "The ACS is just the latest safeguard being unraveled by this administration." As a result, he predicts a return to more lawsuits by environmental activists. "It’s clear to us what they are doing is placing the timber companies above the health of streams, water quality and fish," he said. Environmental activists at the Ashland-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center agree. "We’ve seen this same tactic over and over again from the Forest Service," said director George Sexton. "First they break the law and get reprimanded by the courts. Then they attempt to change the law instead of their illegal behavior." Joseph Vaile, a wildlife biologist for the group, said the proposed rewording would put fish and stream water quality at risk in Oregon. But he was quick to observe he isn’t opposed to logging operations that don’t harm the environment. Many timber sales on public land in Oregon are moving forward after having met current riparian restrictions, he said. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Forest Service insists changes reflect intent The proposed changes to the Northwest Forest Plan’s Aquatic Conservation Strategy reword portions of the document to reflect the original intent, said Rex Holloway, spokesman for the Forest Service in Oregon and Washington. "The only thing we are proposing — clarifying — is how the aquatic objectives are to be applied," he said, noting that a current court opinion has concluded that the objectives, based on present wording, must be applied at the project level and on a short-term scale. "That was never the intent of those objectives," he added. "They were to be applied at the watershed level or higher in the long-term." The bottom line, he said, is the strategy’s objectives will remain intact, and the changes are not intended to weaken riparian protection already in place. But the current language in the strategy has caused some interpretations that are counter to the original intent, making it difficult to meet the restoration and timber harvest objectives called for by the 1994 plan, he said. The agencies’ draft includes two alternatives, one that would make no changes and the proposed action. The proposed wording changes would clarify that the strategy’s nine objectives would not apply at the project or site level but rather at a watershed or larger scale, he said. Public comments on the proposal must be postmarked by July 10. Comments on the draft supplemental environmental impact statement may be sent to: ACS EIS, P.O. Box 221090, Salt Lake City, UT 84122-1090. Comments can be faxed to: 1-801-517-1014 (please address fax to ACS EIS) or e-mailed to: [email protected]. Additional information and a copy of the draft can be found at www.reo.gov/acs/ 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 © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback A D V E R T I S E R S