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Administration Guts Salmon Protections
Document Actions
For Immediate Release: April 2, 2003
Contact: KS Wild - Joe Vaile (541) 488-5789
The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) today for public review. The SEIS proposes changing the Northwest Forest Plan’s (NFP) Aquatic Conservation Strategy (ACS) to allow individual projects to move forward that will harm salmon and water quality.
The core requirement of the ACS is that timber sales and other projects must be conducted in a manner that protects salmon habitat. The administration now wants that requirement to become optional.
“We've seen this same tactic over and over again from the Forest Service. First they break the law and get reprimanded by the courts. Then they attempt to change the law, instead of their illegal behavior,” said George Sexton of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) in Ashland, Oregon. “There is no law that the Forest Service will not break or bend in order to continue cutting old growth trees.”
“Clearcutting old growth and trashing streams kills salmon, thinning the existing fire-prone tree plantations does not. Guess which type of logging this proposal is designed to promote?” asked Sexton.
Joseph Vaile of KS Wild said that the undoing of the stream protections on public land would put our water quality at risk. Additionally, “these new rules could put salmon and trout species at risk of extinction,” said Vaile.
Numerous studies have shown that logging and road building cause erosion and landslides that harm salmon streams and water quality. Conservationists warned the rules could allow more clear-cutting which can harm water quality in streams that are sources of drinking water. Additionally, weakening federal protections could undermine state salmon logging plans which were based the existing strong federal protections for salmon streams. Weakening federal protections may require revisiting state logging rules and salmon protection plans.
Conservationists questioned the need to gut these regulations to produce more timber, stating dozens of timber sales are moving forward in compliance with water quality and stream protections. “Cat Hill Thin on the Prospect Ranger District, Rogue River National Forest will thin 325 acres and has complied with the ACS from the onset,” said Vaile. Skinny Doe, on the Siskiyou National Forest is another thinning project that conservationists are happy to see move forward. Originally the Forest Service planned to punch new logging roads into critical habitat for listed salmon as part of the Skinny Doe timber sale, but due to the protections of the ACS, citizens were able to convince the forest service to conduct the thinning without building the new logging roads.
“If it hadn’t been for the ACS, endangered salmon could have been killed. Because of the ACS, the timber sale was modified to protect salmon, and now the dense tree plantation will be thinned. That’s good for forests, and good for fish,” concluded Sexton.
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Contact: KS Wild - Joe Vaile (541) 488-5789
The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) today for public review. The SEIS proposes changing the Northwest Forest Plan’s (NFP) Aquatic Conservation Strategy (ACS) to allow individual projects to move forward that will harm salmon and water quality.
The core requirement of the ACS is that timber sales and other projects must be conducted in a manner that protects salmon habitat. The administration now wants that requirement to become optional.
“We've seen this same tactic over and over again from the Forest Service. First they break the law and get reprimanded by the courts. Then they attempt to change the law, instead of their illegal behavior,” said George Sexton of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) in Ashland, Oregon. “There is no law that the Forest Service will not break or bend in order to continue cutting old growth trees.”
“Clearcutting old growth and trashing streams kills salmon, thinning the existing fire-prone tree plantations does not. Guess which type of logging this proposal is designed to promote?” asked Sexton.
Joseph Vaile of KS Wild said that the undoing of the stream protections on public land would put our water quality at risk. Additionally, “these new rules could put salmon and trout species at risk of extinction,” said Vaile.
Numerous studies have shown that logging and road building cause erosion and landslides that harm salmon streams and water quality. Conservationists warned the rules could allow more clear-cutting which can harm water quality in streams that are sources of drinking water. Additionally, weakening federal protections could undermine state salmon logging plans which were based the existing strong federal protections for salmon streams. Weakening federal protections may require revisiting state logging rules and salmon protection plans.
Conservationists questioned the need to gut these regulations to produce more timber, stating dozens of timber sales are moving forward in compliance with water quality and stream protections. “Cat Hill Thin on the Prospect Ranger District, Rogue River National Forest will thin 325 acres and has complied with the ACS from the onset,” said Vaile. Skinny Doe, on the Siskiyou National Forest is another thinning project that conservationists are happy to see move forward. Originally the Forest Service planned to punch new logging roads into critical habitat for listed salmon as part of the Skinny Doe timber sale, but due to the protections of the ACS, citizens were able to convince the forest service to conduct the thinning without building the new logging roads.
“If it hadn’t been for the ACS, endangered salmon could have been killed. Because of the ACS, the timber sale was modified to protect salmon, and now the dense tree plantation will be thinned. That’s good for forests, and good for fish,” concluded Sexton.
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