Three logging trucks torched in Oregon

By Joseph B. Frazier

Estacada, Oregon, June 2— Three logging trucks were torched yesterday near a federal forest where environmental protesters have camped out to try to keep loggers from coming in and cutting down trees.

Federal investigators and county deputies went to the scene to investigate.

No one was injured in the blaze, officials said.

A logging company had tentative plans to start harvesting trees at the Eagle Creek timber sale in the Mount Hood National Forest yesterday, and activists have vowed to try to stop them.

An employee of Ray A. Schoppert Logging Inc. spotted the fires and reported them at 2:40 am, said Angela Blanchard, Clackamas County sheriff’s spokeswoman.

One of the trucks was destroyed and two others were damaged. The trucks were valued at about $50,000 apiece, Blanchard said.

The company that owns the trucks is under contract to Vanport Manufacturing Co. of Boring, which was awarded the 1,030-acre Eagle Creek timber sale in the Mount Hood National Forest in 1996.

The mountain area is on the west slope of the Cascade Range about 50 miles southeast of Portland.

Adolf Hertrich, Vanport president, said the company had no warning and no one has claimed responsibility for the fire.

Six simple incendiary devices were planted on each of six log trucks parked in a rural area near the timber sale but only one ignited, said John McMahon, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“One functioned as it was designed to. The others didn’t function as they were designed to,” McMahon said.

Federal agents were investigating but no other details were immediately released.

For the past two years, environmentalists have been trying to prevent logging at the site in the Mount Hood National Forest, including a handful of protesters who have been living in tree “pods” — aerial platforms strung between trees.

Donald Fontenot of the Cascadia Forest Alliance, which has organized much of the longtime protest, said the arson will only distract attention from environmental issues.

“The torching of the trucks strays from what is really important, which is the protection of the watershed,” Fontenot said.

Environmentalists say logging harms the Eagle Creek watershed, which supplies drinking water to 185,000 people in Portland, West Linn, Lake Oswego and Oregon City.

They also say logging could harm rare plants and animals and will destroy centuries-old trees.

Fontenot said protesters will remain in the area, which has been in dispute since Vanport won its bid for the timber sale.

“We will be inside the watershed like we have been for the past five years,” Fontenot said.

“Nothing will stop us unless they arrest us. We are focused like a laser beam on this timber sale,” he said.

Source: Associated Press

Fish and Wildlife Service approves eagle harassment at Lake James

By Marty Bergoffen,
Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project

Asheville, North Carolina, June 6— On June 5th, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that they had approved an Incidental Take Permit to harass two nesting Bald Eagles at Lake James, near Morganton, NC. The permit will allow construction of vacation homes immediately adjacent to the nesting tree of the eagles. Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project and local concerned citizens have vowed to challenge the permit in Federal court.

The Lake James Eagles were first observed in 1998, before the encroaching Southpoint development was initiated. Over the next three years, despite constant harassment from developer Crescent Resources (the real estate subsidiary of Duke Power), the eagles continued to build their nest. Crescent sold the lot containing the eagles’ nest, and the current owners are determined to build there.

This led Crescent to apply for and receive an Incidental Take Permit under the Endangered Species Act. The permit will allow Crescent to continue development of the lot with the nest and adjacent lots, as long as they provide alternative nesting sites and a $10,000 bond in case anything goes wrong.

Unfortunately, in approving the permit, Fish and Wildlife Service ignored essential information and procedural requirements. For example, they approved the permit without having construction plans in front of them. This means the construction could occur anywhere, as long as the eagles aren’t nesting during the construction period. FWS also failed to consider whether $10,000 is sufficient to cover any problems that might arise.

Perhaps most significantly, the environmental assessment prepared by FWS is grossly inadequate to take the required “hard look” at environmental impacts. Prepared without any public input, the assessment lists several important issues that require consideration, then completely ignores these issues. The assessment also fails in the requirement to consider a full range of reasonable alternatives. FWS only considered whether to grant the permit or not, without contemplating any other possibilities.

In granting the permit, Fish and Wildlife Service is required to pursue what’s best for the public. However, the permit will only benefit Crescent Resources and adjacent lot owners, to the detriment of the rest of the public. The Fish and Wildlife Service completely ignored over 400 public comment letters opposed to the permit. Ranging from schoolchildren to elderly, life-long residents of the area, the comments urged FWS to protect the eagles’ nest and ask Crescent to trade the lot with the nest for another. Crescent refused to do so, and Fish and Wildlife Service bent over backward to please the corporate development behemoth.

Local resident Paul Braun is steadfast in his opposition of the take permit. “The eagles at Lake James are the first documented nesting pair this far inland in more than 40 years. Even though bald eagles are threatened with extinction, there are those such as Duke Power who feel that they are simply in the way and have to go.”

Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project is preparing a lawsuit to challenge the permit, based on Fish and Wildlife Service’s faulty analysis and violations of the Endangered Species Act. Contact Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project at 828-258-2667 or marty@sabp.net if you’re interested in this action.