Oregon Logging Rules to be Challenged in Federal Court

PORTLAND--Conservationists and commercial fishermen have filed a 60-day notice saying they will sue to stop harmful logging and road building on private timberlands in Oregon--practices which they say violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA). "This case will do for coho on private timberlands what the Northwest Forest Plan did for spotted owls on public forest lands," says David Bayles, conservation director for the Pacific Rivers Council.

Filed on May 23, the 60-day notice reads in part, "the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF)approves logging operations that harm threatened coho salmon in violation of the ESA's prohibition on 'take' of listed species."

"Oregon's logging plans are death warrants for coho salmon," says Bayles. "The Department of Forestry routinely authorizes logging and road building that destroy salmon habitat and kill threatened fish in violation of federal law."

The suit, which can be filed after 60 days pass, will seek to bring Oregon forest practices into compliance with the Endangered Species Act. Oregon's forest practice rules regulate logging on nine million acres of private land, 56 percent of Oregon's timberland.

"We are bringing this case because the state has failed to protect coho salmon," says Bayles. "If the state would do the right thing, this suit would not be necessary."

The State of Oregon and the Board of Forestry have spent nearly four years reviewing and proposing revisions to Oregon's logging rules. In theory the goal was to protect salmon, but the Board has not required that the new logging rules meet the Endangered Species Act. The Board never asked for input or review by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the new proposed rules fall far short of the minimal logging standards adopted by the State of Washington last year. "The proposed new rules would still allow logging on steep slopes with inadequate streamside buffers," says Sybil Ackerman, conservation director for the Audubon Society of Portland. "It's a recipe for disaster."

Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund filed the notice of intent to sue on behalf of Pacific Rivers Council, Audubon Society of Portland, Coast Range Association, Native Fish Society and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermans Associations. The case specifically cites North Coast logging operations as harmful to coho salmon. The 60-day notice letter lists three types of logging operations that "take" coho salmon:

1. Logging and road building on steep slopes that are prone to landslides

2. Logging without buffers along small, perennial and seasonal nonfish-bearing streams

3. Logging with inadequate buffers along small and medium fish-bearing streams

After the disastrous landslides of 1996, the Oregon Department of Forestry adopted rules to restrict logging and road building on steep slopes where landslides pose a risk to human life. However, ODF foresters routinely approve logging and road building on high-risk sites where landslides pose a risk to salmon.

"For decades, the Department of Forestry has failed to adopt the kinds of forestry rules that science tells us are necessary to protect salmon habitat," says Chris Frissell, senior scientist for Pacific Rivers Council. "Logging practices that damage watersheds on state and private lands are a leading cause of the coho salmons decline. Today the coho is in such dire shape that every impact on forest lands matters."

"Oregon's once great salmon runs are the lifeblood of our industry and could support thousands of coastal jobs, but that economy is being systematically strangled by poor industrial forestry practices," says Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermans Associations, the west coast's largest organization of commercial fishing families.

The Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds, Oregon's salmon recovery plan, promised to restore Oregon's wild salmon population using state-developed solutions. As part of that promise, the Oregon Board of Forestry was specifically directed by Executive Order 99-01 to revise Oregons logging rules to better protect salmon. But no new rules have been implemented and the changes recommended by the Forest Practices Advisory Commission (the group appointed by Gov. Kitzhaber to recommend revisions to Oregon's logging rules) don't even pretend to comply with the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile, the State Department of Forestry continues to authorize the same harmful logging practices it did before coho were listed. Nine years of warnings by federal agencies, scientists, conservationists and fishermen that the Board of Forestry continues to ignore the Endangered Species Act have fallen on deaf ears. "This lawsuit is a measure of last resort," says Bayles. " The state isn't protecting coho. Unfortunately, it has been left up to citizens to do that."

Under the Endangered Species Act, salmon "take" prohibitions automatically apply only to species listed as endangered. But on January 8, 2001, the National Marine Fisheries Service adopted a 4(d) regulation making the take prohibition applicable to Oregon's threatened coho salmon.

The federal lawsuit will be filed in late July unless the Oregon Department of Forestry takes dramatic steps to bring Oregon's logging rules into compliance with the Endangered Species Act.