TIMBER: Judge calls roadless rule illegal; senator adds amendments.
By PAULA DOBBYN
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: July 15, 2003)
A federal judge in Wyoming on Monday struck down as illegal a Clinton
administration conservation policy known as the roadless rule. In Alaska, the
policy would have shielded more than 9 million acres of old-growth trees on the
Tongass National Forest in Southeast from logging and road building. Development
on nearly 5 million acres of the Chugach National Forest near Anchorage would
have also been put off-limits.
The decision, by U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer, contradicts a 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last December that declared the roadless rule
lawful. It amounts to a nationwide injunction that conservationists vow to
appeal.
The ruling comes just days after U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, tacked amendments onto the Interior Appropriations bill that could aid the state's timber industry and limit the window for public involvement in Tongass-related appeals. The judge's injunction also coincides with an expected Forest Service proposal this week to exclude the Tongass and the Chugach from roadless protections through what the agency calls a rule-making.
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, plans to appeal Brimmer's decision immediately to the 10th Circuit, said Tom Waldo, a Juneau-based attorney with the firm. Although the Denver-based 10th Circuit is considered more conservative than its San Francisco-based 9th Circuit counterpart, Waldo said he's confident Brimmer's ruling will be reversed.
The injunction came as welcome news to the Alaska timber industry, which has suffered mill closures and job losses for the past decade as the wood supply has shrunk and prices have fallen.
"This would provide them with some hope that eventually there may be some predictability in the timber supply which they currently don't have," said Carl Portman, deputy director of the Resource Development Council for Alaska.
Representatives of the Alaska Forest Association could not be reached.
Environmentalists said the industry's complaints about a shortage of timber are bogus.
There's plenty of wood available but market conditions are so bad that few companies want to log until prices recover, said Tim Bristol, director of the Alaska Coalition, a conservation group.
The Forest Service has had trouble offering timber sales because of the staggering volume of administrative appeals and lawsuits that environmentalists file, Portman said. Most operators in the Tongass these days are small family-run businesses, not large multinational pulp mills. These mom-and-pop companies don't have deep pockets to wait out extensive litigation, he said.
The two amendments to the Interior bill, written by Stevens, could help change that picture.
One rider would require that court challenges to Tongass timber sales be filed within 30 days after the Forest Service's administrative appeal process has been exhausted. And federal judges would have to render decisions within 180 days after the suit is filed.
Stevens said his goal is to eliminate delays. Environmentalists branded it as a move to limit public involvement in controversial logging fights.
The other rider would allow the people who buy Tongass timber to give the volume back to the Forest Service if they decide the wood is uneconomical to harvest.
"This is exactly the opposite of how public lands should be managed," said Aurah Landau, an organizer with the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.
The Forest Service lost $35 million last year on its Tongass logging program, she said, citing Forest Service documents. The rider makes even worse economic sense for taxpayers because log buyers would be able sell back trees and then purchase them at lower prices.
Portman viewed the rider quite differently. Many small operators buy timber and later run into unforeseen costs related to fuel, road building or environmental compliance.
"If a way out from these uneconomic sales is not provided, then the small businesses bidding on these sales are at risk of going under since they do not have the staying power and resources of big corporations," he said.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, which Stevens chairs, approved the bill last week. The full Senate takes it up next.