Jul 10, 2012. A federal judge has granted a request by several logging industry firms to join Gov. John Kitzhaber and other state officials in defending Oregon’s plan to allow more logging in Coast Range forests.
U.S. timber companies join Oregon to defend logging
Jul 10, 2012. /Lesprom Network/. A federal judge has granted a request by several logging industry firms to join Gov. John Kitzhaber and other state officials in defending Oregon’s plan to allow more logging in Coast Range forests, as The Bulletin reported.
The lawsuit filed by three environmental groups — Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Audubon Society of Portland — claims the state’s logging goals in the coastal Elliott, Tillamook and Clatsop state forests illegally harm the habitat of the threatened marbled murrelet, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act. The seabird lays its eggs on the large, mossy branches of mature and old-growth trees.
State officials have said they have a forest management plan to protect the seabird. However, they have voluntarily suspended logging on 10 timber sales until District Judge Ann Aiken rules on the environmentalists’ motion for an injunction.
The state protection plan includes designated buffer zones of protected forest where murrelet activity is detected and curtailed logging schedules during the April-to-September nesting period.
The industry groups expected to help defend the state’s forest policy include the Oregon Forest Industries Council, Douglas Timber Operators, Scott Timber Co. Inc. of Coquille, Hampton Tree Farms Inc. of Salem and Seneca Sawmill Co. of Eugene, The Register-Guard newspaper reported.
The council represents more than 50 logging and wood products companies, including Seneca and Scott.
Seneca legal affairs director Dale Riddle told the newspaper on Friday that the company is joining the suit because it bought one of the contracts that has been halted, the Millicoma Lookout timber sale, from the Elliott State Forest in Coos County.
The logging industry firms have an interest in the case because they rely on timber sales from state and federal agencies and because the public lands case could set a precedent restricting their “use and management” of private lands for timber production, attorney Dominic Carollo wrote in their motion to join the suit.
