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Judge puts stop to more timber sales Deer Mom is among tracts affected by Dwyer's ruling By PAUL FATTIG A federal judge has temporarily blocked 25 additional federal timber sales in the Pacific Northwest, including the controversial Deer Mom sale near Selma. U.S. District Judge William Dwyer in Seattle on Thursday approved a request by environmentalists to expand his Aug. 2 preliminary injunction to include the sales. He ruled that the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management had failed to adhere to a Northwest Forest Plan requirement to survey 77 species of rare plants and wildlife before selling the timber. Thursday's decision places a legal logjam in front of more than 40 million board feet of timber planned for logging in the BLM's Medford District and the Rogue River National Forest. The decision also included roughly 85 million board feet of federal timber elsewhere in Oregon. The ruling prevents logging on the sales before the judge makes another ruling based on issues raised in a legal briefing set for Oct. 22. As expected, the environmental community applauded the ruling while the timber industry was appalled. Agency officials withheld comment Thursday evening. The BLM was waiting until its attorneys had reviewed the judge's eight-page decision, according to Medford District spokeswoman Karen Perault. Dwyer's actions are the result of a 1998 lawsuit brought by 13 environmental groups, including Headwaters, an Ashland-based coalition of environmental groups. In his decision, Dwyer cited the "survey-and-manage" requirement included in the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. "It appears that over the past several years the Forest Service and BLM have approved timber sales without complying with the Northwest Forest Plan's Category 2 wildlife survey requirements," Dwyer wrote. "To a considerable extent the effects of this cannot be undone. But the present record does not justify an order that would allow 25 more sales to go forward without compliance with law." However, he did exempt one timber sale in Northern California. He also excluded a small portion of the 2.7 million-board-foot Deer Mom sale that has already been cut. In addition to Deer Mom, the Medford District BLM sales that have been enjoined include "B" Lost, 3.9 million; Flying Lost, 5.9 million; Isabelle, 10.2 million; Poor Bishop, 5.8 million; Round Forks, 7.9 million; Titanic, 5 million; and Serpents Grave, 4.8 million. Superior Lumber Co. of Glendale purchased five of the BLM sales and Rough and Ready Lumber Co., based in the Illinois Valley, purchased two. The other Medford District BLM sale was purchased by Roseburg Forest Products. Another sale that was enjoined Thursday was the Carberry Creek sale in the upper Applegate River drainage of the Rogue River National Forest. The 700,000-board-foot sale was purchased by John R. Wood Trucking, based in the Applegate Valley. David Hill, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, said the decision will have an immediate impact on local firms and their employees who depend on federal timber for their livelihood. "That's the immediate impact," he said. "In the longer run, how this injunction plays out over time is the question that is potentially much more serious than the injunction against these 25 sales. "If the injunction leads to shutdown of federal timber lands, it will affect all the mills left in the area," he added. "And that will have an effect on everybody who lives here." The injunction could have been avoided had the agencies followed the law, observed Selma resident Mort Mondale, a member of the Southern Oregon Forest Coalition, which has actively protested the Deer Mom timber sale. "For two years we've been making hundreds of suggestions to the BLM which they have continually rejected as wrong -- the judge has just confirmed we were right," he said. "If they would have taken the time to listen, they wouldn't have violated the law," he added. Tom Dimitre, project analyst for Headwaters, agreed. "The agencies have been ignoring the public for two years," he said. "We've commented and appealed. They've ignored us. It's a vindication for the public." In Dwyer's Aug. 2 decision, nine federal timber sales were halted, including the BLM's North Murphy timber sale in the lower Applegate River drainage. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA