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31.Dec.2001 09:07 |
Coquille timber sale, News From the Oregon Woods
author: repost for Francis Eatherton
 e-mail: francis@wizzards.net
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Judge Hogan delisted endangered fish in September 2001. Luckily he was stayed by the 9th circuit court of appeals on December 14 and endangered salmon protections were reinstated. There were some instances where the federal government rushed in and logged during the 3 months the ESA protections for the Coastal Coho Salmon were lifted.
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Date posted to WALL-LIST:
Sun, 30 Dec 2001 by francis < francis@wizzards.net
12/27/01 I want to share with you our Christmas experience. As you know, Judge Hogan delisted endangered fish in September 2001. Luckily he was stayed by the 9th circuit court of appeals on December 14 and endangered salmon protections were reinstated. There were some instances where the federal government rushed in and logged during the 3 months the ESA protections for the Coastal Coho Salmon were lifted.
Coos-Bay BLM clearcut 30 acres of the Belieus Brothers timber sale, and the Coquille Indian Tribe clearcut about 65 acres of the Coquille Forest (both native, mature forests, up to 150-years-old, 5 feet diameter Douglas Firs.) What is more appalling is that Lone Rock Timber continued logging even after December 14, illegally, even though their Coquille Forest timber sale had been enjoined by Judge Rothstein on June 5, 2001. I just happened to find them logging on December 19, 5 days after they were supposed to have stopped.
That day I had tried to get to the BLM Belieus Brothers timber sale to see the damage done there (it won't be yarded until spring). When I came upon a locked gate, late in the day, I went instead to the near-by Coquille Forest timber sale, and was disappointed to see many trees very recently cut on the ground in unit 5. When I went to unit 4, I was shocked to see an active logging show in progress. By the next day, quick action by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (who had gotten the original injunction) had shut them down with TRO. The TRO has since been lifted because Lone Rock promised to not cut any more trees. However, they want to yard what has been cut starting on January 2. (I'm a bit worried they will want to cut more trees for yarding corridors).
For pictures of the clearcut and background on the court cases, see: < http://pictures.care2.com/view/1/156392106> (Note, this is not our web site, but we will use some of these pictures later). This is Coquille Indian Tribe forest management on former BLM land.
In 1996 Senator Hatfield brokered a deal where we would get Opal Creek protected and the Coquille Indian Tribe would get 5,400 acres of land from Coos-Bay BLM. The congressional act required the Coquille Tribe to manage the land with the same environmental protections (like the Northwest Forest Plan and the ESA) that the Coos-Bay BLM followed. The BLM land was transferred to the Tribe in 1997. Their 1999 Forest Plan estimated the Tribe could sustainably log 2 mmbf per year. Later in 1999 the Tribe proposed their first timber sale project (the Chu-Aw-Clau-She Timber Sale), almost 20 mmbf of clearcuts on 328 acres. The Riparian Reserves on some streams were reduced by half for a total reallocation of 16 acres to be clearcut as matrix land.
Rick Sohn (not a tribal member), owner of Lone Rock Timber in Roseburg (whose brother Howard is on the Oregon Board of Forestry), was chosen by the Coquille Tribe as their first representative on the Southwest Oregon Province Advisory Committee (PAC). Lone Rock Timber eventually purchased the first Coquille Forest timber sale, and it was Lone Rock we caught logging illegally on December 19. Meanwhile, back in 1999, we asked the Coquille Tribe to do Survey and Manage on their timber sale, as required by the Northwest Forest Plan. They refused. We appealed. Signed onto our appeal were 30 people, most from the town of Coquille, and some were Coquille Tribal members. The Tribal Council then insisted we pay them $36,000 bond before they would hear our appeal, as allowed under BIA appeal regulations.
When we didn't pay the money, the BIA Regional Director overseeing the Coquille Tribe determined two things: 1) We didn't have standing to appeal anyway because only the purchaser or seller (Tribal Council) can appeal their own decision. Not even tribal members have standing to appeal, according to BIA regulations. 2) The Coquille Tribe should have done surveys according to the Northwest Forest Plan.
OK, at least we got surveys. Everybody had to go out and do new surveys after Judge Dwyer's ruling, even Coos-Bay BLM. Soon, Coos-Bay BLM had surveyed the Big Creek sale. On 84 acres they needed to protect 8 Red Tree Vole sites, 19 Mollusks sites, and 20 Botany sites. On the adjacent 328 acre Coquille Forest sale the Tribe claimed they found 0 red tree voles, 0 mollusks, and 2 botany sites. Forester and biologist for the tribe Travis Hunt, claimed there just weren't any uncommon species in their sale. (By the way, Travis Hunt, not a tribal member, is the new representative for the Coquille Tribe on the just-formed Resource Advisory Committee RACs). In December of 2000 the Coquille timber sale was stopped again, this time by Judge Rothstein (along with 170 other federal sales) because such large clearcuts degraded watersheds, which is not allowed by the ESA protecting endangered salmon.
But in spite of this court ruling, the Coquille Tribe sold 102 acres of the Chu-Aw-Clau-She EA to Lone Rock Timber in April of 2001 and Lone Rock Timber started to cut through the forests to build the new logging roads. The tribe claimed that since they had deleted the road restorations from the sale, the sale no longer harmed fish. We rushed back to Rothstein's court when we incidentally discovered what they were doing and got another injunction. They had to stop logging, but we were nice, and let them yard the timber they had cut for the road right-of-ways.
Then came Judge Hogan's ruling on September 10 delisting endangered Coastal Coho Salmon, removing ESA protections.
But since the Coquille Forest timber sale was under a new appeal from us, the tribal chairman (Ed Metcalf) told me they wouldn't be logging it due to Hogan's ruling. That is why I was so disappointed to find trees cut after Hogan was stayed. And considering the history of this whole sale, saving it and resaving it from the jaws of death for almost two years, I was very saddened to find about 65 acres (out of the 102 acres sold) had so quickly been clearcut.
Last week, on December 20, as I watched the log trucks being loaded, Rick Sohn (owner of Lone Rock Timber) told me on my cell phone that it didn't concern him that there was an injunction on this sale. He takes his orders from the BIA. He also threatened that if I physically stopped his logging operation he would sue me for lost time.
When I called Ron Kortlever, Superintendent of the BIA, he told me that nobody told him the 9th circuit court of appeals had overturned Judge Hogan. He was faxed the court order, and in turn he ordered the Coquille Tribe and Lone Rock to stop logging. But they want to yard and haul the trees already on the ground, about 30 acres of them. They will let us review (not approve) their yarding plans and start to yard on Wednesday January 2nd. (As of December 30, we have not yet seen any yarding plans...).
One more thing. We went back up to the sale on Christmas day so that we could peacefully evaluate the situation. We were faced with newly locked gates and new "NO TRESPASSING-Lone Rock Timber will prosecute" signs. I guess they didn't read public law 104-208 transferring the land from BLM to the Tribe. Section 8 says: "The Coquille Forest shall remain open to public access for purposes of hunting, fishing, recreation and transportation except when closure is required by state or federal law..."
Francis Eatherington Umpqua Watersheds francis@wizzards.net
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