Bark Protects Threatened Salmon from Illegal Logging on Public Lands

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2/13/2012

Bark Protects Threatened Salmon from Illegal Logging on Public Lands

Contact:
Olivia Schmidt, Program Director, Bark, 503-331-0374, [email protected]

Environmental non-profit, Bark, settled a lawsuit against the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), scoring a victory for threatened salmon and steelhead. The settlement affects nine timber sales in Mt. Hood National Forest and Salem District BLM by requiring an expansion of ‘no-cut’ riparian buffers to ensure the protection of five species of salmon listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA): Lower Columbia River Chinook Salmon, Upper Willamette River spring-run Chinook Salmon, Lower Columbia River salmon, Lower Columbia River Steelhead, and Upper Columbia River Steelhead.

Trees logged from publicly-owned National Forests cannot be exported as raw logs, and so the market for these trees has been non-existent since before the housing market crash. According to policy, the Forest Service continued to plan and sell timber sales from Mt. Hood National Forest during this time, with no analysis of the cumulative impacts of logging multiple years worth of sales in one season, once the market revived. The back-log of delayed timber sales totals 10,000 acres in the Clackamas River Watershed alone, home to some of the best salmon habitat in all of Mt. Hood National Forest.

Concerned that the environmental analysis of these timber sales didn’t take into account the possibility of multiple sales being logged in one season, Bark issued a Freedom of Information Act request to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Forest Service.

According to a document provided by NMFS in its FOIA response (but conspicuously omitted in the response from the Forest Service) land managers within the Forest Service and BLM were mandated in 2009 to revise fish protections on 19,000 acres of timber sales in Mt. Hood National Forest, Willamette National Forest, and the Salem district BLM. The NMFS 2009 letter of non-concurrence stated that tree retention rates and “no-cut” buffers in riparian zones were not adequate and that the timber sales as planned were “reasonably certain to adversely affect ESA-listed salmon and steelhead and their critical habitats.” (Note: This letter of non-concurrence can be made available upon request) The FOIA response exposed the Forest Service’s withholding of a critical document from stakeholders for two years and underscored the cavalier approach taken by the BLM and Forest Service to prioritize timber interests over the protection of threatened salmon.

Under the ESA, federal agencies have an ongoing duty to protect threatened and endangered species, and are required to change projects if the project will have a greater impact on listed species than anticipated. Instead of enlarging the protective buffers, the Forest Service and BLM chose to withhold the letter from stakeholders, and allow logging to move forward on all of the indicated timber sales in salmon habitat.

Bark sent the agencies a 60-day notice on August 4th, asking them to comply with the law and expand the buffers. The agencies refused to comply and forced Bark to litigate.

The settlement agreement between Bark and the Forest Service and BLM will expand protective buffers on 26 timber sale units in nine sales, including two timber sales on land managed by the Salem BLM and seven timber sales on land managed by the Forest Service in Mt. Hood National Forest. Unfortunately, the majority of timber sales determined to harm threatened salmon and steelhead habitat were already logged by the time Bark filed the lawsuit.

Olivia Schmidt, Bark Program Director, reflects on the implications of the Forest Service and BLM actions: “That the Forest Service and BLM have known for more than two years that these timber sales would harm threatened salmon, and yet failed to protect the salmon or make this information public goes to show that timber interests still dominate our public lands managers, even at the risk of further endangering threatened species.”

She explains, “This lawsuit illustrates the unfortunate reality that the public cannot trust the Forest Service and BLM to do the right thing and protect threatened species until forced to do so through the legal system. If the federal agencies would have simply complied with the law in 2009, many more acres of forest would be spared, many more salmon protected, and one less lawsuit need be filed.”