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Feds approve halt in logging Judge to rule today in suit over rare-species surveys Wire and staff reports The government agreed Tuesday to environ--mentalist demands for a court order blocking logging on 26 more federal timber lands -- including several in the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management -- until the tracts are surveyed for rare plants and wildlife. But the timber industry opposed the deal, arguing that it would impose an unnecessary hardship on wood mills in Oregon and Washington that depend on the timber to keep working. U.S. District Judge William Dwyer in Seattle stopped nine timber sales earlier this month after finding that despite spending $8 million a year, the Forest Service had failed to fully follow a Northwest Forest Plan mandate to survey for 77 species of rare plants and wildlife before selling timber. The agreement came on the eve of a hearing this morning when Dwyer was expected to rule on a motion by environmentalists to expand the injunction with 26 more timber sales amounting to 125 million board feet. The sales are held by 16 companies. Although Bureau of Land Management officials contacted Tuesday evening said they were waiting for specifics in the agreement before commenting, they indicated it could include nine timber sales in the agency's Medford District. That would include the controversial Deer Mom timber sale in the Deer Creek drainage of Selma. Timber industry spokesman Chris West of the Northwest Forestry Association said injunctions and voluntary withdrawals of timber sales over the plant and wildlife surveys amounted to 550 million board feet of timber, enough to keep 10 mills working for a year. Doug Heiken of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, an environmental group involved in the lawsuit, said the blocked timber represented important fish and wildlife habitat as long as it was standing, and less than 10 percent of the overall harvest in the Northwest after it was cut down. The Forest Service and BLM agreed to temporarily block the 26 extra timber sales, with details to be worked out for a permanent injunction by early October, said Forest Service spokesman Rex Hollaway. All the injunctions would be lifted once the surveys were completed. The Northwest Forest Plan was created by the Clinton administration to protect fish and wildlife habitat in national forests throughout Oregon, Washington and California, after environmentalists won a lawsuit to protect the northern spotted owl. It reduced logging on Northwest national forests by 80 percent. Meanwhile, staff for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., criticized the Forest Service for moving too slowly. "The Forest Service can either get serious about working with Congress to fix this situation, or Congress will have to attempt to fix it without them," said Josh Kardon, chief of staff to Wyden. Kardon's comments came following a meeting in Portland between the Forest Service and staff members of the Northwest congressional delegation to discuss options for lifting the logging injunctions. Hollaway said the meeting had been held to lay out information in preparation for further talks. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA