Environmentalists Liken Salmon to Spotted Owl
Hoping to repeat their spotted owl successes, environmentalists warned the Oregon Department of Forestry on Wednesday that they will sue to stop logging on private lands in the Coast Range unless more is done to protect threatened coho salmon.
The Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund said it will seek an injunction in 60 days unless the state agrees to change the Oregon Forest Practices Act, which regulates logging on private and state-owned lands, so that it complies with the Endangered Species Act.
"This case will do for coho on private timberlands what the Northwest Forest Plan did for spotted owls on public forst lands," said David Bayles, conservation director for the Pacific Rivers Council.
Environmentalists have felt frustrated over the Oregon Board of Forestry's efforts to make logging practices more fish-friendly.
"This lawsuit is the citizens' way of holding the state to those requirements and hopefully the state will redo the Forest Practices to include those items so the individual landowners won't be on the hook," said Patty Goldman, a lawyer for Earthjustice.
The Oregon Forest Practices Act currently allows timber companies to build roads in areas prone to landslides, log in the sensitive riparian zones along small- and medium-sized fish-bearing streams, and cut over non-fishbearing streams in headwaters areas.
Environmentalists argue that such logging harms fish by removing shade that keeps waters cool enough for fish and promotes erosion that allows sedimentation to choke spawning gravels.
Lawsuits by environmentalists brought logging in spotted owl habitat on national forests to a halt in the early 1990s when a federal judge imposed an injunction. The injunction was not lifted until the U.S. Forest Service revised its logging practices through the Northwest Forest Plan, which reduced logging on federal lands by 80 percent.
The lawsuit will be filed on behalf of the Pacific Rivers Council, the Coast Range Association, the Native Fish Society, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, and the lead plantiff of the spotted owl lawsuits, the Audubon Society of Portland.
