Volume 9, Number 2 The newsletter of Forests Forever Fall, 2005

Logging in sequoia preserve halted for now

Los Padres: Back to court to keep out drilling...6

Linda Perkins and Bill Heil: Redwood minders...7

Ancient wonders of the modern world...2

Kicking the props out from under forest law...3

The contrivance of policy-based science...4

Inside The Watershed

“No portion of the monumentshall be considered to be suited fortimber production. . . .”

–Presidential Proclamation, 2000

Logging where no loggingis allowed just became a lotharder for the U.S. ForestService, thanks to three recentcourt decisions that affect the Giant Sequoia NationalMonument.

And a new proposed lawwould take the southern Sierrawilderness jewel out of thehands of the timber-obsessedForest Service altogether.

The courts weigh inOn July 7 a judge in the U.S.

District Court in Anchorage,Alaska, ruled that the ForestService cannot disguise loggingprojects as “categorical exclu-sions” in an effort to exemptthem from environmentalassessment and public scrutiny.The ruling also makes such proj-ects subject to appeal.

Later the same month, in asuit brought by Californiaattorney general Bill Lockyer,a federal judge found that theForest Service’s fire plan for

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Blowdown in the monument. Removing the forest from around giant sequoias leaves the big trees more vulnerable to the wind.

Forests Forever Foundation and 19 otherconservation groups on Oct. 6 filed suitagainst the U.S. Forest Service, demandingrevocation of the Bush administration’sroadless rule repeal and reinstatement of theoriginal Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The administration’s repeal in May ofthe roadless rule provoked lawsuits andnew legislation to restore the former regu-lation that kept logging and developmentout of the roadless areas of national forests.

“The Bush repeal places the lastremaining large, untouched and unprotect-ed tracts of our national forests squarely atrisk from fragmentation and develop-

ment,” said Forests Forever Foundationboard president Mark Fletcher.

On Aug. 30, the attorneys general ofCalifornia and New Mexico, together withthe governor of Oregon, had filed a similarlawsuit in federal district court in SanFrancisco against the Bush administrationover its repeal of the 2001 roadless rule.

And in the California Assembly, A.B.715, a bill that would deny state funds toassist federal agencies with actionsinconsistent with the original, protectiveRoadless Area Conservation Rule, wasintroduced by Assemblyman LloydLevine (D-Van Nuys). It passed both

houses of the legislature before hitting atimber industry and motorized-recre-ation lobbying roadblock on Sept. 8.Levine plans to move forward with A.B.715 when the legislature reconvenes inJanuary.

Three-pronged complaintThere are three legal claims in the

Earthjustice-led lawsuit filed by ForestsForever Foundation and others in federaldistrict court in San Francisco:

• The Forest Service violated theNational Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

See “Monument,” p. 9

Forests Forever joins suit to save roadless rule

See “Roadless,” p. 12

Fall, 20052 The Watershed

from the Executive Director

“What’s the use of somebody that doesn’twonder? It’s the hallmark of our species. . . .”

—Astronomer John Dobson

Of all the things that make human lifemost sweet, wonder may well top the list.

Wondrous are things mysterious . . .the vast, the beautiful, the terrible, theincomprehensible.

Giant sequoias are surelyamong the living things thatimpart the most wonder tohumans that experience them.

Coming upon a giant sequoiain a southern Sierra forest, onefirst becomes aware of a golden-orange light flooding through thetrees. Are we approaching theridge crest at sunset? A few stepscloser, we see that the light isreflected Alpenglow off a colossaltree trunk– on a scale completelybeyond that of the surroundingbig trees.

In one way, sequoias convey asense of awe more akin to whatwe might experience from architecturalwonders than natural ones.

The fabled Seven Wonders of theAncient World were all architectural andengineering marvels that a Mediter-ranean traveler might have been able tovisit in a single journey in the first millen-nium B.C. Five of them, including theColossus of Rhodes, were probablydwarves in comparison to the tallestsequoias, which can attain about 310 feet.

Of the Seven Ancient Wonders onlythe Great Pyramid and the Lighthouseat Alexandria were taller than thebiggest sequoias– and only the pyramidis older. Sequoias have been known tolive well past 3,000 years.

The sequoias’ size and age elicit mar-vel, but there are other reasons theyamaze us. The world’s most massiveorganisms spring from seeds about thesize of a grain of salt and 1/58-billionththeir full-grown weight. Giant sequoias

can have bark up to three feet thick (onereason fire rarely hurts them) and add 40cubic feet of wood to their girth each year.

Yet the Forest Service is destroyingthe sequoias, using archaic clearcut log-ging practices that denude the giants ofthe sheltering, anchoring forest withwhich they have evolved, and on which

their survival depends.S. 1897, just introduced in Congress,

would hand the sequoias’ managementover to the federal agency that bestunderstands the importance toAmericans of natural beauty and awe–the National Park Service.

The scarcity theory of value holdsthat the rarer a commodity becomes– inthis case the aged and behemothSequoiadendron giganteum– the more eco-nomically valuable it becomes. Itappears we are entering an age in whichrare and natural wonders are, increas-ingly, economic assets.

When the ivory-billed woodpecker,thought to be extinct since 1951, turnedup in the swampy bottomlands ofArkansas in 2004, it set off a surge ofinterest worldwide. The excitementprompted one writer in the SanFrancisco Chronicle to speculate, perhapsa little too giddily, on what might hap-

pen if California condors were spottednesting on Angel Island, in the bay:

“Camera crews would be stumbling overone another trying to rent boats to get out toAngel Island . . . The bay's fishing fleet . . .would suddenly be booked solid with bird-watchers . . . Walkers along the bay’s shorewould have an exciting new subject of con-

versation and wonder. Bay Areatourism would jump with bird-watch-ers coming from all over the world . . .”

Traditional lists of the SevenNatural Wonders of the World varyas to which items are included but,astonishingly, list no organisms.There are volcanoes and canyons andwaterfalls, but no elephant bird orsnow leopard or golden poison frog.

People all over the world wouldsay the sequoias are an internationaltreasure, and would scarcely believethat they are being destroyed by aU.S. government agency.

In our increasingly built-outworld there are many rightful won-ders of human origin. From sky-

scrapers and suspension bridges to mira-cle drugs and microchips, we can marvelat many things wrought by humanhands.

But the wonders of Nature havebeen created by the unseen and non-human processes of evolution, in num-berless random events through time andspace. Intelligent design indeed.

Humans can’t make a sequoia, andas yet little understand one, but can eas-ily destroy one and all its kind.

Let this article serve, then, as a plea foradding the giant sequoias to a list of theworld’s living– and surviving– wonders!

—Paul Hughes

“Of the Seven Ancient

Wonders only the Great

Pyramid and the

Lighthouse at Alexandria

were taller than the

biggest sequoias.”

Mysterious miracle of living things:Taking the measure of giant sequoias

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Task Force Follies NEPA, the keystone of environmental laws, is under attack

If the Bush administration and its alliesin Congress have their way, a keystone ofenvironmental law that has played a criti-cal role in forest conservation for 35 yearsmay be hit with a wrecker’s ball.

The administration has been chippingaway at the National Environmental PolicyAct (NEPA) with rule changes designed toslip timber sales past the law’s provisions bydisguising them as categorical exclusions.(See related story on page 1, “Logging insequoia preserve halted for now.”) NowRepublicans in Congress arelooking for a way torewrite the law entirely.

“NEPA is the win-dow, the informationsource about potentialimpacts which then trig-gers review under otherlaws,” said ScottGreacen, public landscoordinator for the Envi-ronmental ProtectionInformation Center(EPIC). “This is totallycritical. Without NEPA,we may not know aboutClean Water Act viola-tions, or EndangeredSpecies Act violations,or if a timber sale mightlead to a violation of theNational Forest Man-agement Act.”

Taking NEPA to taskLeading the assault

on NEPA is the NEPATask Force, chaired byRep. Cathy McMorris (R-WA). The Task Forceis working under theHouse Resources Com-mittee, chaired by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA).

Between April and September, the TaskForce held five regional hearings in variouslocations across the country. The purpose,according to the Task Force website, was togather testimony about “where NEPA isworking and where it can be improved.”The goal was to determine “how to providethe best solution for both the environmentand the economy.”

But as the meetings got under way, adifferent agenda soon emerged: to limit tes-timony as much as possible to complaintsabout NEPA, and use that information tobuild a case for gutting this critical piece oflegislation.

Let’s play “Hide the hearing!”Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA), one of

eight Democrats on the NEPA Task Force,co-chaired the first hearing in Spokane,Wash. Many of the 175 people who attend-ed wore stickers that read, “I Support

NEPA: Democracy in Action.”But the four remaining hearings were

very different. In the wake of a highturnout by NEPA supporters, Republicansre-scheduled from easily accessible loca-tions to obscure ones, includingNacogdoches, Tex. (instead of Houston)and Rio Rancho, N.M. (instead ofAlbuquerque).

In addition, only invited speakers wereallowed to testify. Some environmentalistswere not invited until a few days inadvance, had only one day to prepare theirtestimony and rearrange their schedules,and thus could not attend.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix itSince 1970, when President Nixon

signed NEPA into law, it has offered citi-zens a way to influence how the federalgovernment treats public lands.

Under NEPA, federal actions that sig-nificantly affect the environment– such aslogging in national forests, oil drilling,and highway construction– are subject toscrutiny, scientific review, and public comment.

Not surprisingly, forest activists havecome to rely on NEPA, first to learn ofpotentially damaging projects, and then tolimit the damage. For example:

• In September, staff scientists at theCentral Sierra Environmental ResourceCenter (CSERC) found cows grazing in aresearch area that a NEPA decision hadprotected from livestock. The Center noti-fied the U.S. Forest Service but two weekslater the cows were still there. “Now, wecan contact the Forest Service and say,‘Look, you’re violating your requirementto keep livestock out of there because it’s aresearch area,’” said John Buckley, CSERCexecutive director. “We’ll go to the media,if we have to. If that doesn’t work, we’llfile a lawsuit to get them to comply withtheir own requirements.”

• In October 2004 a federal districtcourt ruled in favor of a lawsuit against theForest Service. The judge found thatKlamath National Forest repeatedly violat-ed NEPA in its preparation of a proposedtimber sale that included large areas whereall the trees were to be removed. TheForest Service proposal had described theplan to log 975 acres of old-growth forest incritical habitat for salmon as “watershedrestoration.”

• In 1993, conservation groups sued theForest Service under NEPA for failing touse competent scientists to analyze projectsinvolving clearcutting. The Forest Serviceresponded by assembling scientists, whofound that clearcutting was eliminatingcritical habitat for the spotted owl and

Resources Committee chairman Richard Pombo

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“To justify its agenda, the Bush White House issuppressing studies, purging scientists, anddoctoring data to bamboozle the public and thepress. It is a campaign to suppress sciencearguably unmatched in the western world sincethe Inquisition.”—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in

Crimes Against Nature

Our under-standing of for-est science hasincreased dra-matically overthe last 100years, and forestm a n a g e m e n tnow embracesthe work ofb o t a n i s t s ,wildlife biolo-gists, hydrolo-gists, and fish-eries scientists aswell as foresters.

So it is rea-sonable to as-sume that whenthere are differ-ing opinions onforest policy andm a n a g e m e n t ,science would berelied on to settlethe issue.

Guess again.The full ros-

ter of Bush ad-m i n i s t r a t i o nattempts to dis-tort, suppress or rewrite the conclusions ofscientists to fit its policy goals is too long todiscuss here.

In this article we’ll concentrate insteadon some of the most blatant attempts to sti-fle independent forestry science. (A list onpage 10 provides readings with many moreexamples from other fields.)

But first, here’s a quick tour of a few ofthe more alarming low points:

• In June 2003 a Bush appointee blue-penciled a section on global warming in anEPA report. The resulting distortions andmisstatements of the scientific evidence wereso great that the EPA chose to delete the sec-tion in question entirely.

• Edits made to a federal Bureau ofLand Management report on grazing inJune 2005 turned its findings upside-downand eliminated any suggestion that graz-ing might alter landscapes for the worse.The original report’s conclusion that theproposed grazing rule changes might harm

wildlife and lower water quality wasreplaced by a statement that grazing was“beneficial to animals.”

• In 2005 the U.S. Fish and WildlifeService instructed its employees not to fill outa survey from the Union of ConcernedScientists and Public Employees for Environ-mental Responsibility (PEER) about scientif-ic integrity in the agency. Thirty percent didanyway; their responses told of widespreadsuppression of scientific findings, threats ofretaliation, and political interference.

How they do itThe administration’s misuse and sup-

pression of scientific evidence became so

blatant that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)commissioned a report.

“Politics and Science in the Bush Admin-istration” appeared in 2003. The report iden-tified three main tactics the administrationuses to distort or suppress science to suit itspolicy goals:

a) Manipu-lating scientificadvisory com-mittees by ap-pointing mem-bers without sci-entific creden-tials but whor e p r e s e n t e dindustry or hada right-wingagenda.

b) Distort-ing or suppress-ing scientificinformation.

c) Interfer-ing with scien-tific research byblocking it,eliminating pro-grams, and pre-venting publica-tion of results.

“Most ofthese issueshave one of twofeatures,” thereport said. “(1)They are issuesthat have activeright-wing con-

stituencies . . . that support the President; or(2) they are issues . . . with significant eco-nomic consequences for large corporate sup-porters of the President.”

“Many generally held scientific conclu-sions are ignored or suppressed by the Bushadministration,” said James Newman, ageologist and member of Forests Forever’sboard of directors. “It seems that the onlyacceptable data to this administration are theones that support their religious-right agen-da or enrich their corporate contributors.”

Smashing the FrameworkThe Sierra Nevada Forest Plan (the

Framework) was a blueprint for managing

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the Bush assault on the integrity of science in forest policy

Junked Science:If you don’t like the facts, the White House says, just change ’em

the forests of the Sierra, signed by PresidentBill Clinton in 2001. The Framework wasdeveloped over 10 years, with input fromforestry professionals, citizens, and morethan 100 scientists, including scientistsworking for the U.S. Forest Service.

The Bush administration, however, hadother plans for Sierra forests. Committed toincreasing resource extraction on publiclands, the Forest Service had the planreviewed by its own team of “experts,” mostof them non-scientists. Within a year the rec-ommendations of this team were being craft-ed into a revised plan that tripled theamount of loggingand weakened pro-tections for oldgrowth and the ani-mal and plant speciesdependent on it.

“The Frameworkwas the result ofmany years of workby fire and fuels sci-entists and ForestService researchers,”said John Buckley,director of the Central Sierra EnvironmentalResource Center and a former Forest Servicefirefighter, quoted in the Fall 2003 issue ofThe Watershed.

“It was based in part on the $7 millioncongressionally funded Sierra NevadaEcosystem Project Report– the most thor-ough scientific analysis ever done for theSierra Nevada region.”

The original Framework covered 11national forests in California, from ModocNational Forest in the north to SequoiaNational Forest in the south. By January2001 the plan had received more than47,000 public comments and peer reviewsby independent scientists.

According to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., inCrimes Against Nature (HarperCollins,2004), the administration of California Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger, which had madesupport of the original Sierra NevadaFramework a plank in its campaign plat-form, was blindsided by Bush’s log-happyrevision of the plan.

They tried to open a discussion with theBush administration, but CalEPA chiefTerry Tamminen’s phone calls to the WhiteHouse went unanswered, and the revisedplan rolled forward in spite of the gover-nor’s objections.

The Bush administration claimed thatthe increased logging was necessary to pre-vent forest fires. There is ample evidencethat logging is a primary cause and intensifi-er of forest fires, however, including reportsby the Forest Service’s own scientists.

The plan was honest about one aspect,at least. Cutting trees up to 30 inches indiameter would be done to “pay for” thethinning projects.

Attorney General v. the Forest Service California attorney general Bill Lockyer

filed suit against the U.S. Department ofAgriculture and the Forest Service inFebruary 2005, charging that the newSierra Framework revision “ignores sci-ence, flouts the law.”

In approving the 2004 Framework,Lockyer’s complaint says, the Forest

Service violated the NationalEnvironmental Policy Act (NEPA) and thefederal Administrative Procedure Act(APA), which governs regulatory decision-making.

The agency acted in an “arbitrary andcapricious” manner to reach a “predeter-mined” outcome. Specifically, the agency’s2004 plan has no foundation in new sci-ence, new facts or changed circumstances,according to the complaint.

Public Employees for EnvironmentalResponsibility intervened in the suit. Thegroup maintained that the Forest Service,“drove its scientists who disagreed withthe increased logging targets out of the

agency. In one instance, a specialist foundhimself blackballed from obtainingemployment as a private consultant.”

Changing spotted owl data“There should be a special circle in hell for

people who mess with scientific data.”—RickPiltz, quoted by Chris Mooney in TheRepublican War on Science (Basic Books,2005)

The Forest Service’s rationale forincreasing timber cutting in the Sierra wasthat it needed to preserve the forests fromfire and keep the old-growth habitat of theCalifornia spotted owl from being burned.

To demonstrate this, the agency pre-sented data showing that the owls hadbeen burned out of 18 owl habitat sites byforest fire over the past four years.

The only problem with these data isthat they weren’t true.

In an Associated Press article on Aug. 6,2004, wildlife biologists said that seven ofthe 18 “destroyed” sites the Forest Servicecited were in fact green, growing, andoccupied by the birds in question.

The article added that a Forest Servicewildlife biologist had been removed fromthe team that rewrote the Framework afterhe had complained about the agency’s dis-tortion of the spotted-owl data. A state-ment by this scientist to the effect thatwildfire was beneficial to the forest anddid no harm to the owls was struck fromthe report.

"Ranting" on the Roadless RuleAccording to the Natural Resources

Defense Council(NRDC), the EPAdeleted commentscritical of Bush’sproposed rollback ofthe roadless rulefrom an official lettersent to the ForestService on Nov. 26,2004.

The originalRoadless Area Con-servation Rule wasput in place byPresident BillClinton just beforehe left office in 2001.The rule bannedroadbuilding, log-ging, mining and

other development in inventoried roadlessareas in the national forests. (See “ForestsForever joins suit . . . ” on page 1.)

The original EPA letter noted the

Fall, 2005 The Watershed 5

See “Science,” p. 10

“It seems that the only acceptabledata to this administration are theones that support their religious-

right agenda or enrich their corporate contributors.”

Clay Bennett / © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor. (www.csmonitor.com) All rights reserved.

Forest conservation groups fighting tokeep oil and gas drilling out of Los PadresNational Forest in September joined theCalifornia attorney general in appealing arecent decision to open up 52,000 acres of theforest.

Los Padres Forest Watch, Defenders ofWildlife, and the Center for BiologicalDiversity on Sept. 16 appealed the U.S. For-est Servicedecision.

E a r l i e r,on Sept. 13,C a l i f o r n i aattorney gen-eral Bill Lock-yer filed hisown appeal.

“ T h eagency’s planrequires avast networkof roads,p i p e l i n e s ,and transmis-sion wiresthat will cutthrough theheart of someof the mosts e n s i t i v eareas of theforest, includ-ing key habi-tat for thec r i t i c a l l yendangeredC a l i f o r n i acondor,” saidKim Delfino,C a l i f o r n i aProgram Director for Defenders of Wildlife,in a press release.

Los Padres National Forest is located onCalifornia’s central coast, stretching fromMonterey County’s Big Sur region toVentura County and the western edge ofLos Angeles County. It is the third-largestnational forest in California, covering about1.75 million acres.

The Forest Service wants to increase theacreage on Los Padres open to oil and gasdrilling. Some 14,000 acres already areleased to oil companies.

On July 15 the Forest Service releasedthe Final Environmental Impact Statement

for its study of oil and gas leasing in theLos Padres.

The study recommended opening52,000 additional acres to oil and gasdrilling. Within this acreage, designatedwilderness and inventoried roadless areaswould not be entered for new surfaceexploration and drilling.

Surface drilling– with its drill rigs, stor-

age tanks, and service roads– would belimited to 4,000 acres. The remaining48,000 acres would be opened to a tech-nique called “slant drilling,” whichinvolves drilling under protected areasfrom just outside their boundaries.

Slant drilling facilities, however, have arange of one-half mile, so slant drilling wellsand their associated roads, pipelines andpowerlines would need to be within 2,600 feetof the affected wilderness or roadless forest.

“The impacts . . . of this oil and gasdrilling equipment so near the [Sespe] con-dor sanctuary must be analyzed in depth,”says the attorney general’s appeal.

The footprint left by oil developmentcould have a big impact on the whole forest,even those areas that are ostensibly protected.

In addition to the oil wells and associat-ed development, vehicle traffic in the forestwould increase to service the wells. Oilspills almost certainly would occur, both atthe drilling sites and on the roads.

Lockyer’s appeal points out that theForest Service decision fails to take adequateaccount of the possibility of “ruptures, spills,and leaks from the oil and gas pipelines.”

Spills would threaten wildlife in theforest, especially the Los Padres’ most icon-ic creature, the California condor.

Two areas identified as potential sur-face-drilling sites border on the SespeCondor Sanctuary and the HopperMountain National Wildlife Refuge. Everyarea under consideration for oil leasing iswithin the condor’s historical range.

The appeals also point out that theForest Service is allocating specific areas tooil drilling before a forest plan is complet-ed and agreed upon.

Lockyer’s appeal asserts that this con-tradicts the purpose of the National ForestManagement Act (NFMA), which requiresnational forests to draw up forest manage-ment plans that determine how the landwill be used.

Deciding which lands should be devot-ed to oil and gas leasing before the man-agement plan is completed, Lockyer says,violates the requirement of NFMA.

Moreover, the natural beauty of the for-est would be seriously affected by oil andgas development.

“The impact of oil and gas drilling on theedges of the forest [affects] the wildlife thatlives within it as well as the ability to enjoythe quietude of its lands,” the appeal says.

As with the controversial proposal toopen Alaska’s Arctic National WildlifeRefuge to oil and gas drilling, increasingthe drilling in the Los Padres would dis-rupt wildlife habitat and recreational use ofthe forest to recover an insignificantamount of oil.

“Our communities should not have tosacrifice even more of our clean water,scenic vistas, and recreation opportunitiesfor less than a day’s supply of oil,” saidJeff Kuyper, executive director of LosPadres ForestWatch.

—M.L.

Petroleum vs. Los PadresConservation groups appeal oil-drilling plan for national forest

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Condors soar above the mountains of Los Padres National Forest.

On Superbowl Sunday, you won’t findmany Americans in the woods document-ing ecological crimes.

But in 1997 Linda Perkins and Bill Heil,two forest activists from the coastalMendocino County town of Albion, foundit hard to ignore a group of locals choppingup a huge redwood that had fallen into BigRiver. They were removing the logs withbulldozers, a practice known as“sinker logging.”

Perkins grabbed her camera andbegan photographing the logging,sparking one of the most significantlawsuits of the couples’ 13-year-longcareer of keeping watch overMendocino’s forests.

“I realized this was sort of a com-munity practice,” she said, adding thatthe people mining the logs rangedfrom folks needing extra cash to mari-juana growers looking for a coveroperation to well-respected, estab-lished local families.

“Not only did they take logs thatwere floating,” Perkins said, “but theyalso took logs up from the bottom–old-growth logs– and of course, wedon’t have old-growth trees to fell intothe rivers any more.”

The sunken logs provided impor-tant habitat for the endangered cohosalmon, and removing them stirred upsilt and severely degraded fishery habitat.

With the help of their lawyer, PaulCarroll of Menlo Park (“probably the bestforestry lawyer there is,” claims Heil),Perkins and Heil brought suit against thestate Department of Fish and Game (DFG).The agency is responsible for conductingenvironmental review of streambed andstreambank alterations and water diver-sions– something it had regularly failed todo. And they won.

Their victory had repercussions state-wide. The sinker logging issue was merely“a springboard,” Perkins said, “that affectednot only forestry, but PG&E and CalTransand anybody who does any work on a riveror stream and now undergoes an environ-mental review that they had not in the past.”

Neither Perkins nor Heil, both 65,moved to Albion with the intention ofbecoming a forest activist. He arrived from

the Bay Area in 1969 to join a commune,and she came, nine years later, to teach.

But within a couple of decades, as theintentional community disbanded and thesurrounding forest disappeared, their ener-gies were redirected into fighting industri-al timber corporations.

And for Perkins, growing up Bogalusa,

La., a turn-of-the-century mill town (homeof what was then the world’s biggestsawmill) prepared her for future battles inNorthern California.

“When I moved up to Albion I had thatbackground in knowing that my nativelongleaf pine forests in Louisiana had beendevastated,” she said.

Timberlands in the Albion watershedhad been owned by the Masonite Corp.since 1950. But in the late 1980s, Louisiana-Pacific (L-P) bought out Masonite, whoselogging practices, said Heil, had been rela-tively benign.

“(The lands) were really well-timbered,so L-P just started to liquidate ’em,” Heilremembers.

In 1992 L-P proposed two timber har-vesting plans (THPs), using clearcutting,near a section of the Albion River namedEnchanted Meadow. It was two years after

Redwood Summer– a season of civil dis-obedience and public demonstrations tofocus awareness on the timber companies’destruction of the redwoods– had kickedoff direct action in Northern California’sforests.

An Albion resident living near the pro-posed cut enlisted Earth First!ers to help

put up a fight. Theresulting six weeksof demonstrations(“day and night,”said Perkins) becameknown as the“Albion Uprising.”

Heil recalled, “Weended up spendingthe night and helpingput up a treesit for thefirst time. We’d heardabout treesits but noone (in the area) hadparticipated in one.”

Perkins and Heilwere among hun-dreds of peopleprotesting at ralliesand in the woods, acollective effortinvolving everythingfrom raising moneyand talking on radioshows to picking up

people from the Ukiah jail and supportingup to 13 treesitters.

L-P eventually withdrew its THPs,though not without suing about 80 protest-ers for “interfering with economic relations.”

The case dragged on for a year. Most ofthe protesters “settled” with L-P– the set-tlement consisted of L-P dropping the law-suit and the protesters agreeing not to tres-pass again.

Two of the protesters refused to settle,however. They countersued, and forced L-Pto transfer 60 acres of its holdings, includingEnchanted Meadow, to the protesters.

“When L-P sued us, it was a real mis-take, because it was like trying to herdcats,” Perkins laughed. “But the result of itwas we had to stay together. I was reallygrateful to L-P. Had it not been for that wewould have simply said, ‘Okay, we won,’

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Bill Heil and Linda Perkins, activists in Albion

Activist profile

It takes a community to save a forestLinda Perkins and Bill Heil watch over Mendocino’s redwoods

and everyone would have gone home.” And from that point the couple was

embedded in forest activism. Heil counts“probably 10” lawsuits to their credit since1993. Their first legal victory centered onGeorgia-Pacific’s (G-P’s) helicopter loggingon Salmon Creek, whichforms a natural borderfor Albion. Perkins hadonly recently started re-viewing THPs. “I was atotal novice reading thisgosh-awful, bureau-cratic jargon.”

Heeding a recom-mendation from theMendocino Environ-mental Center, shecalled Paul Carroll, ask-ing first if he’d file a suit,and second, if he’d do itfor free.

His answer– “Uh, sure,” according toPerkins– initiated the lawsuit and led to anunprecedented verdict in favor of theAlbion River Watershed ProtectionAssociation, the unincorporated neighbor-hood association in whose name Carrollfiled the suit.

“It just astounded G-P,” Heil said.“Nobody had successfully challengedthem in court before out here.”

The late 1990s were devoted to review-ing THPs and protesting cuts, including L-P’s attempts to log on the lower Albion.The company suffered numerous setbacks–undriveable roads, fallers reluctant to workamong protesters (the two camps would,Heil said, end up sitting and talking togeth-er till noon), and termite-infested logs.

This botched harvest turned out to bethe “last gasp” for L-P. They soon soldtheir property, totaling about half of the 30-square-mile watershed, to MendocinoRedwood Co.

Although the couple scrutinizes itsTHPs just as closely as ever, MendocinoRedwood is not the entity that really getsHeil going.

Rather, it’s the California Departmentof Forestry, the agency controlling JacksonState Forest, that earns Heil’s ire.

“Jackson State Forest has probably thenicest forests left in Mendocino Countythat are actually being logged,” he said.

In 1998 Heil was included in a CitizensAdvisory Committee charged with craftingrecommendations for the six-year-overduemanagement plan for the forest.

“There’s probably one million acres of red-wood forest in Mendocino County: 500,000 is

in the hands of industrial loggers, and thenthis 50,000 (acres) actually belongs to us.

“I was part of what we called theJackson State Owners Association– me andyou. The CDF thinks it belongs to them.”

Heil said the CDF is still, seven yearslater, without an update of its 23-year-oldmanagement plan for Jackson Forest.

After ignoringthe recommenda-tions of the advi-sory committee,the agency laggedon writing a plan,let alone creatingthe habitat con-servation planactivists wanted.Yet all the whilethe agency contin-ued submittingTHPs.

Carroll andVince Taylor,

executive director of the Campaign toRestore Jackson State Redwood Forest,took the CDF to court in 2000, charging thatthe agency was logging in Jackson withouta current management plan.

They won, and all logging has stoppeduntil the CDF generates a new plan.

“They logged a few acres,” Heil said.“Besides that, they haven’t had any timberharvest there in four years now because ofour lawsuits.”

As Perkins put it, “We win repeatedlyin court, but it’s THP by THP.”

(In 2003 Forests Forever and Taylor’sgroup took CDF to court over the environ-mental impact statement forthe agency’s then-proposedJackson Forest managementplan. The suit was decidedin Forests Forever’s favor,and no logging can proceedat Jackson until the plan isrewritten. As this newsletterwent to press, CDF had stillnot unveiled a new manage-ment plan, though it isexpected soon.)

On June 4, 2004, at theurging of Perkins, ForestsForever called its supporters’ attention to a317-acre THP on Big Salmon Creek by theHawthorne-Campbell Group. The compa-ny planned to clearcut 177 acres, with 163acres tractor-yarded; local residents feltthat this high-impact logging violated ear-lier commitments made by the company.

Largely as a result of the ForestsForever alert, DFG sent two inspectors tothe site. They asked that 161 acres be with-

drawn from the plan, called for protectionof all old-growth trees, and for road treat-ments to reduce sediment discharge tostreams. And Hawthorne-Campbell begantalks with local residents.

“The two events transpired onlybecause of all the phone calls that weremade and emails and letters that weresent,” Perkins later wrote.

Today Heil and Perkins continue to beinvolved in lawsuits but their vision is fargrander than litigation.

“We want to buy the forest,” Heil said.This isn’t such a far-out strategy, and

has been in the works for nearly eight yearsof monthly meetings. The organization puttogether to buy the forest is the RedwoodForest Foundation (RFF).

“Charles Peterson, who was our 5thDistrict county supervisor, had this ideathat he should get a cross-section of citi-zens together– a representative groupacross the spectrum– and attempt to buyand manage this land for the public bene-fit,” Perkins said.

Specifically, RFF is eyeing propertyowned by Hawthorne-Campbell, whichbought G-P’s leftovers.

“When G-P sold, they split. They closedthe mill and sold the land,” Heil said.“(Hawthorne-Campbell) doesn’t reallycare if it’s timber land or if they subdivideit or whatever. They’re doing a prettypredacious job.”

Perkins said prospects for reversingthis profiteering recently took an unexpect-ed turn. After negotiating for a year withthe company, Hawthorne-Campbell decid-ed it was willing to sell not only its hold-

ings on Salmon Creek,which the communityof Albion had part-nered with RFF toacquire, but also therest of its land on BigRiver– about 16,000total acres.

And the Conser-vation Fund, a nationalorganization that helpsbuy land, protect itthrough conservationeasement, and then

turn the management over to the interestedstewards, teamed up with RFF.

Lawsuits are temporary victories atbest, Heil said.

“When we actually end up havingsome of this land managed non-profit forpublic benefit . . .” He paused mid-vision.“That’s our goal, and that would be ourbiggest victory.”

—Katie Renz

Fall, 20058 The Watershed

“Jackson State Forest has probably the

nicest forests left in Mendocino County that are actually

being logged.”

“Community,” continued from p. 7

“We win repeatedly in court, but it’s

THP by THP.”

Sequoia National Forest was illegal. TheSequoia National Forest entirely encom-passes the monument, where logging hadbeen going forward under this plan.

Then in September a federal judgegranted a preliminary injunction against the2,000-acre Saddle Project, a timber sale inthe monument packaged as a “fuels-reduc-tion” project. This project would have cutfive million board feet, from trees up to 30inches in diameter.

Let the Park Service do itWhile the recent court rul-

ings may keep the ForestService from logging in the328,000-acre monument for thetime being, it is just a matter oftime before they try again.

“It’s like a hydra,” saidlong-time sequoia defender andForests Forever advisory coun-cil member Martin Litton of theForest Service’s logging proj-ects. “Stop one and three orfour new ones take its place.”

For this reason the Act toSave America’s Forests, a billrecently re-introduced in theSenate as S. 1897 by Sens. JonCorzine (D-NJ) and Chris-topher Dodd (D-CT), wouldtake the monument away fromthe Forest Service and place itunder the National ParkService.

“The monument shouldhave been with the ParkService from the beginning,”Litton said. “The Forest Ser-vice’s business is getting rid offorests. They’ve never beengood at restoring them.”

The Park Service managesadjacent Sequoia National Park,using mostly prescribed burning to preventdamaging wildfire and restore ecosystemsharmed by decades of fire-suppression efforts.The sequoias in the park are flourishing.

The bill also would ban clearcuttingon the national forests and stop loggingand roadbuilding in their roadless areas.The measure would require federal agen-cies to restore the native biological diver-sity of national forests, rather than man-age them as timber farms for privateindustry.

The bill will soon be re-introduced inthe House by California Rep. Anna Eshoo(D-Atherton).

Categorical deceptionsCategorical exclusions (CEs) are used to

waive small projects (such as brush clearingaround a ranger cabin) from the environ-mental assessment requirements of theNational Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

In recent years, however, the ForestService has been casting larger projects asCEs, often claiming that they are for “hazardtree removal” or “fuels reduction.”

In 2003 the U.S. Department of theInterior pushed through a new set of rulesthat allow CEs for 250-acre “salvage log-ging” projects and “fuels reduction” projects

of up to 1,000 acres each. Forest activists saythat these projects are thinly disguised tim-ber sales.

Several environmental groups took theForest Service to court over misuse of CEs.

The judge in a July 7 ruling agreed withthe groups that brought the suit, and fur-ther said (when the Forest Service assumedthat the decision only applied in theEastern District of California, where thecase was tried) that the ruling was in effectnationwide.

The Forest Service then over-interpretedthis ruling to mean that no CEs of any kindwere permitted, and refused to implementany project (including such small-scale activ-

ities as mushroom-gathering and Christmas-tree cutting), claiming it had to open all proj-ects to public comment and appeal.

According to some observers this over-interpretation was an attempt to forceCongress to step in and change the law.

Finally, on Oct. 20, the judge in the caseissued another clarification, saying thatonly large-scale projects such as timber salesor off-road vehicle trail building would besubject to public comment and appeals, notthe small, low-impact undertakings that hadpreviously been excluded as CEs.

To counter these court decisions, Reps.Richard Pombo (D-CA) andBob Goodlatte (R-VA) onOct. 24 introduced a bill(H.R. 4091) that would limitpublic comment andappeals for CEs. The billwould be retroactive to July7, 2005, the date of the courtdecision. No hearings haveyet been scheduled for themeasure.

The suit was broughtby Earth Island Institute,Sequoia ForestKeeper,Heartwood, the Center forBiological Diversity, andSierra Club.

Fire plan illegalThe legal victory by

California attorney generalLockyer stymies the ForestService’s latest attempt toget around the provisionsof NEPA. The agency hadbeen operating under a fireplan drawn up withoutpublic input or possibilityof appeal, arguing that theplan was not subject toNEPA because it containedno new agency decisions.

This plan would havesuppressed natural wildfire

entirely in part of the monument and lim-ited use of prescribed burning as a man-agement tool in favor of mechanical thin-ning.

Critics of the plan accused the ForestService of subsidizing sawmills, and point-ed out the success of prescribed burning inmanaging adjacent Sequoia National Park.

Logging haltedThe ill-fated Saddle Project was in place

when President Bill Clinton established theGiant Sequoia National Monument byproclamation in 2000. The Bush administra-tion claimed that the project was “grandfa-

Fall, 2005 The Watershed 9

See “Monument,” p. 10

Pho

to c

ourt

esy

Mar

tin

Litt

on

A lone giant sequoia surrounded by a clearcut.

“Monument,” continued from p. 1

thered in,” and thus not subject to the procla-mation’s ban on timber harvesting.

When in July 2005 the Forest Serviceannounced that logging would begin, theSierra Club and other environmen-tal groups sued, saying that theForest Service had not compliedwith NEPA requirements to reviewnew scientific evidence about thestatus of the Pacific fisher.

The fisher is mentioned as aspecies in need of protection in theoriginal proclamation. After the log-ging project was underway, new evi-dence came to light that made thefisher eligible for listing as an endan-gered species.

Yet the Forest Service did nothalt the logging, nor undertake anystudies on the project’s effect on fish-er habitat.

On Sept 9 Judge Charles Breyerfound for the Sierra Club and issueda preliminary injunction halting thelogging. Breyer pointed out that,although the Forest Service claimed theproject was to remove built-up fuel and pre-vent fires, the agency and the timber compa-ny had waited five years, until timber pricesrose, before beginning to cut.

None of the logging projects undertakenby the Forest Service in the monument havetargeted the giant sequoias themselves.

The wood of the big trees is generallytoo brittle to be valuable as saw timber. Butthe soil compaction caused by logging

operations damages the shallow root sys-tems of the sequoias, destabilizing them.And by taking out the forest around them,isolated sequoias become more vulnerableto wind pressure and blowdown.

When rains fall on disturbed groundafter a clearcut, erosion further removesanchoring soil from around the trees’ roots.

In addition to their impact on giantsequoias, logging projects such as theSaddle have damaged the habitat of endan-

gered and threatened species, includingthe California spotted owl and thePacific fisher.

Forests Forever goes to WashingtonForests Forever executive director

Paul Hughes took a trip toWashington, D.C., this fall to lobby forthe re-introduction of the Act to SaveAmerica’s Forests. He was joined byCarl Ross, executive director of SaveAmerica’s Forests, an organization thathas strongly supported the bill and isworking for its re-introduction.

Hughes and Ross visited the staffsof 27 legislators and briefed them onthe bill. They also attended a fundrais-er for Rep. Eshoo and with her dis-cussed grassroots organizing strategyto support the bill. “We emphatically expressed the need to

protect the monument via passage of theAct," Ross said. “The co-sponsors for theAct have increased and we are a giant stepcloser to protecting the giant sequoias.”

—M.L.

destructive effects of roads on water quali-ty and aquatic life. The EPA commentswere supported by numerous studies, cit-ing among them the 1996 Sierra NevadaEcosystem Project report and the 1993Sierra Nevada Science Review. The letteralso pointed out the Forest Service’s $8.5billion backlog in road maintenance.

But none of these criticisms appeared inthe final version of the letter that was sentto the Forest Service. According to theNRDC, Stephen Shimberg, a politicalappointee in the EPA’s Office ofCompliance Assurance, dubbed the letter“a rant” and refused to send it, ordering thestatements critical of the roadless rulechange removed.

The only remnant of the EPA’s criti-cisms in the letter he finally authorized tobe sent was a feeble suggestion that anadvisory council be convened to advise ondamage to watersheds from roadbuilding.

Non-science for mismanagementThe National Forest Management Act

(NFMA) was passed in 1976 to help ensurethe sustainability of our national forests.Among its provisions, the act required the

regular preparation of forest managementplans.

In December 2004 the Bush administra-tion published rule changes in the FederalRegister that exempted forest plans fromenvironmental reporting requirementsunder NEPA, eliminated protections forendangered species, dispensed with scien-tific review, and made public input intoForest Service projects much more difficult.

The new rules threw out specificNFMA protections for fish and wildlife,and replaced them with vague, generalizedlanguage about maintaining “healthy,diverse, and resilient” ecosystems.

Instead of consulting with scientistsand submitting forest plans to independentscientific review, managers are told to “con-sider” the “best available science.”

These rule changes, for the first timesince NFMA’s enactment, were developedand implemented without review or inputfrom the Committee of Scientists, appoint-ed under NFMA to advise the ForestService on forest planning and regulations.

A long, long list Many more examples of Bush adminis-

tration flouting of scientific evidence could

be listed, from stem cell research to globalwarming, from obesity to endangeredspecies.

“The administration and Congress areon track to undo 30 years of environmentalpolicy,” Newman said. “They are ignoringthe evidence of scientists and allowingpolitical appointees to sell out the publicinterest to the highest bidder.”

—M.L.

For further reading

Crimes Against Nature by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (HarperCollins, 2004)

The Republican War on Science by ChrisMooney (Basic Books, 2005)

Rep. Henry Waxman’s report, Politics and Science in the Bush Administrationis available online:http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/politics_and_science/index.htm

The Union of Concerned Scientists:http://www.ucsusa.org/See especially their report from 2004, Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, flanked by Paul Hughes of Forests Forever (left) and Carl Ross of Save America’s Forests (right)

“Monument,” continued from page 9

“Science,” continued from p. 5

Fall, 200510 The Watershed

other species. “Based on its own science,the Forest Service greatly altered its poli-cies for managing forests in the SierraNevada region,” said Buckley.

• After a fire in Stanislaus NationalForest in 1997, the Forest Service claimedthat eight million board feet needed to becut because the trees were dead or dying.Using one of the provisions of NEPA, forestactivists walked through the targeted areasand found that even though some trees hadbeen burned, the vast majority were greenand healthy. When faced with this, theForest Service withdrew plans to helicop-ter-log in a roadless, old-growth areawhere almost no trees had actually beenkilled by the fire.

“NEPA has become the key frameworkfor environmental planning and decision-making,” said Greacen of EPIC. “If we areto gut or eliminate NEPA, I think it’s entire-ly foreseeable that we will have govern-ment agencies making decisions in relativesecrecy and silence.”

Over-protective or under-funded?NEPA critics complain that the process

takes too long and that energy needsdemand more flexibility.

For example, noting the effects ofHurricane Katrina on oil and gas refineriesin the Gulf states, Task Force members rec-

ommended relaxing NEPA requirementsfor oil and gas production inside nationalforests.

NEPA critics also advocate looseningrestrictions against salvage logging in hur-

ricane-devastated forests to take advan-tage of the commercial value of partial-ly damaged trees.

Another frequently heard criticismis that NEPA’s requirements restricttimber sales and increase fire danger onforest lands by allowing forests tobecome “overgrown.”

Inslee, on the other hand, hasexpressed only one concern. He wouldmost like to see an increase in fundingfor NEPA review. Inadequate resourcesInslee believes, can cause delays andother problems with implementingNEPA’s provisions. For example, theCouncil on Environmental Quality,which oversees NEPA’s implementa-tion by federal agencies, has only one

full-time staff member to provide theseagencies with NEPA-related technicaladvice and coordination.

What to ExpectThe NEPA Task Force, originally set to

expire on Oct. 5, has had its lifespan extend-ed by McMorris. It will now continue tohold hearings around the country, with thegoal of producing a report by Nov. 30.

The Task Force’s recommendations willbe only that. But activists are concernedthat they will provide ammunition for anti-environmentalists seeking to limit theeffectiveness of an important environmen-tal law.

—Tara Treasurefield

A publication of Forests Forever, Inc. and the Forests Forever Foundation

The Watershed© 2005

All rights reserved

Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper

The Watershed

FORESTS FOREVER

50 First St., Suite 401 San Francisco, CA 94105

phone (415) 974-3636 fax (415) 974-3664

mail@forestsforever.org www.forestsforever.org

Board of Directors:

Mark A. Fletcher, Ph.D.President

Ken SmithSecretary

James NewmanTreasurer

Kent Stromsmoe

Advisory Council:

Carla Cloer

Janet Santos Cobb

Richard Gienger

Betsy Herbert, Ph.D.

Martin Litton

Jill Ratner

“Restore,Reinhabit,

Re-enchant”

Paul HughesExecutive Editor

Marc LecardEditor

Gary Bentrup Flag Artwork

“Follies,” continued from p. 3

FORESTS FOREVER FOUNDATION

Board of Directors:

Paul HughesExecutive Director

Mark A. Fletcher, Ph.D.President

Ken SmithSecretary

James NewmanTreasurer

Fall, 2005 The Watershed 11

TAKE ACTION:Write or call your senators and representative and urge them to support NEPA. You’ll find their con-tact information athttp://www.house.gov andhttp://www.senate.gov

Rep. Cathy McMorris, chairwoman of the Resources Committee’s NEPA Task Force

Pho

to c

oure

sty

U.S

. Hou

se o

f Rep

rese

ntat

ives

when it failed to prepare an environmentalimpact statement (EIS) for the repeal. UnderNEPA, a federal agency is required to pre-pare an EIS for any “major federal actionssignificantly affecting the quality of thehuman environment.”

• The agency violated the Adminis-trative Procedure Act (APA) by failing tomeet its own stated objective of taking “aresponsible and balanced approach toaddressing concerns while enhancing road-less area values and characteristics,” and byfailing to comply with its overriding statuto-ry duties to protect nation-al forest land.

• The Forest Serviceviolated the EndangeredSpecies Act, whichrequires all federal agen-cies to make sure theiractions do not jeopardizethe continued existence ofany endangered or threat-ened species, or destroytheir critical habitat.

The earliest date this lawsuit will beheard is likely April of 2006.

Three states file suitThe lawsuit brought by California,

New Mexico, and Oregon also alleges vio-lations of NEPA and the APA.

While the case is being presented to thejudge, other states may join the lawsuit. InNovember, the conservation groups’ lawsuitwas assigned to the same judge as the states’action, and the cases will proceed together.

No help for roadless destructionThe Levine bill is still alive and could be

brought up for a vote in the next state legisla-

tive session. Between now and January,Levine hopes to meet with the oppositionand identify specific areas of disagreementand possible resolution.

Since June, Forests Forever has beenworking closely with Levine, organizinggrassroots support for the measure andhelping to keep it in the public eye.

“The public has spoken out repeatedlyin favor of hanging on to these roadlessareas and not developing them,” Fletchersaid. “Thousands of Californians in recentmonths have written, phoned, and faxedtheir elected representatives.”

National Roadless Area Protection ActAnother effort to restore protections to

roadless areas is the federal NationalRoadless Area Protection Act of 2005 (H.R.3563). Introduced by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) in July,this bill proposes to codify as federal law theprotections in the original roadless rule.

H.R. 3563 is now in the House Committeeon Resources, chaired by anti-environmentalzealot Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA).

“Pombo and others in the ResourcesCommittee probably intend to hold the billthere until it dies,” Fletcher said. “Just get-

ting it to the House floor for markup willbe a huge challenge, but we’ve got to try.”

Petition to save roadless areasForests Forever also has joined with 75

other conservation organizations urgingtheir members to sign a petition demand-ing that the Forest Service restore the orig-inal roadless rule.

The petition, written by the HeritageForests Campaign, an organization that hasbeen working on roadless issues for sever-al years, can be seen and signed at:http://www.net.org/petition.php?partner=FF

The original roadless ruleOn May 5, when the Bush

administration repealed theRoadless Area ConservationRule, 58.5 million acres ofroadless public land onnational forests lost their pro-tection from logging, drilling,and development. InCalifornia, 4.4 million road-less acres are at risk.

Roadless areas are animportant source of clean drinking waterfor cities and towns; they are also home tocountless species of wildlife.

The 380,000 miles of roads already innational forests fragment wildlife habitat,and open the land to clearcut logging andincreased threat of destructive wildfires,poaching, and invasive species.

“The roadless areas of our nationalforests are under attack right now,”Fletcher said. “But we in the conservationcommunity have begun to fight back. If wehold to our vision of saving these last pris-tine forests, and do what’s needed to makethat vision reality, we will succeed.”

—Tara Treasurefield

FORESTS FOREVER50 First St. #401 San Francisco, CA 94105

If you do not wish toreceive The Watershedsend this along with themailing panel at right to:

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Thank you.

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PAIDSan Francisco, CAPermit No.3573

“Roadless,” continued from p. 1

“The Bush repeal places the lastremaining large, untouched and

unprotected tracts of our nationalforests squarely at risk.”