‘God Squad’ Will Decide Forest Feud : Environment: Two government agencies oppose each other over whether to harvest 4,570 acres of virgin timber. The issues before the special panel will be maintaining the local economy and preserving the northern spotted owl.

On a steep mountainside above the meandering Smith River, dozens of Douglas firs that have been growing since George Washington was President tower over a small parcel of public forest.

All around, large swaths of the forest have been cut down, but here in a 31-acre island of trees, firs as tall as 180 feet provide shade and shelter for elk, bald eagles and, perhaps, the endangered spotted owl.

The trees and creatures have survived fires, storms and the logger’s chain saw. Now this patch of federal forest has become part of a political debate in Washington, D.C., and a test of the Endangered Species Act.

Officially, the tract is known as the Clabber Creek Unit and is one of 44 proposed timber sales in the public forests of southwestern Oregon that have become embroiled in the long-running battle over protection of the spotted owl.

In a dispute that has pitted two federal agencies against each other, the Bureau of Land Management wants to log all 44 parcels--4,570 acres of virgin forest--to help maintain the economy of the region. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however, has blocked the timber sales, contending that they could jeopardize the existence of the endangered owl by destroying critical habitat in the center of its range.

Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., who oversees both agencies, announced Oct. 1 that he will call together the rarely convened Endangered Species Committee to decide whether the 44 tracts should be logged. A decision is expected early next year.

Nicknamed the “God Squad” because of its power over endangered species, the committee could set a precedent for spotted owl protection on millions of acres of public and privately owned forest from California to Washington. Its actions also are likely to fuel the debate next year when Congress considers renewal of the Endangered Species Act.

In logging towns such as Elkton, about 10 miles south of the Clabber Creek tract, and in Roseburg, the Douglas County seat, many people hope that the God Squad will agree that the trees should fall.

“Convening the God Squad is maybe an overreaction,” said Steve Trout, a rancher who lives just outside Elkton. “But if that’s the kind of game you’ve got to play, bring on the God Squad.”

The bureau’s plan to harvest the timber has broad support among the people of the region whose incomes depend on a steady supply of timber to local mills. It also has the strong backing of county governments in southern Oregon, which under an odd twist in the law receive half of all the money from the BLM’s timber sales.

“It’s part of a well thought-out management plan that creates products, revenues and economic enhancements for the region and the county,” said Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson. “If we start falling apart as a region, our ability to address environmental concerns will fall apart as well.”

However, environmentalists and Fish and Wildlife biologists who oppose the logging plan say the timber harvest would leave a gap in the Coast Ranges forest that connects Oregon’s fragmented populations of spotted owls.

“We felt these sales were the wrong sales in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said David Klinger, a spokesman in Portland for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “We want to ensure that the species has the right mix of habitat to provide linkage between separate populations, to ensure genetic diversity and to prevent inbreeding.”

Mel Chase, Coos Bay district manager for the Bureau of Land Management, hiked down an elk trail that runs through the Clabber Creek tract and discussed his agency’s plan to clear-cut the fragment of virgin forest, located about 25 miles southwest of Eugene.

From the stand of trees, eight clear-cuts are visible on mountainsides, creating a patchwork quilt of brown earth, young trees and old-growth Douglas firs. The nearest known nest of spotted owls, he said, is about 2 1/2 miles away.

“To me, this is the best place to harvest because it has the least impact on the owl,” Chase said. “What’s incomprehensible to me is (the claim) that if we cut this, the northern spotted owl will go extinct. That just flat doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Chase said BLM has long managed its forest lands to enhance various species, such as the Roosevelt elk that is popular among hunters. In fact, the elk, which thrives in clear-cuts as well as old-growth forests, has increased to near record numbers under the agency’s management, he said.

“We don’t destroy habitat,” he said. “In my view, we change the habitat. We have changed the habitat in favor of the elk.”

For the spotted owl, the clear-cutting of old-growth forests has been a serious problem. Much of the shy bird’s habitat in the ancient trees has been destroyed, leaving an estimated population of about 2,800 adult pairs in Oregon, California and Washington, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The owl’s federal status as an endangered species prohibits logging in areas where the bird nests. But the timber harvest has continued to claim nearby areas of the forest where the owl could recolonize and increase its numbers.

At issue in the debate over the 44 tracts is what biologists call “dispersal habitat,” trees where juvenile owls can land and rest as they head out on their own in random directions from the nest.

If too many old-growth trees are logged, the Fish and Wildlife Service contends, the young birds will be unable to travel through the woods and find mates. Instead, they will become vulnerable to predators, jeopardizing the species. Agency biologists say it is not the harvest of a tract that harms the owl as much as the cumulative effect of logging in the region.

The Bureau of Land Management maintains that it is compelled to log the forest under a 1937 law that set aside 2.4-million acres for a sustainable timber harvest.

The land now managed by the bureau was granted in the late 1800s to the Oregon & California Railroad as an incentive to build a rail line from Portland to Sacramento, said bureau spokesman Ed Ciliberti. Typical of land grants of the era, the region was divided in checkerboard fashion; the railroad received alternating square miles and the rest was sold to settlers.

To recoup its construction costs, the Oregon & California was supposed to sell its holdings to homesteaders at the going rate of $2.50 an acre. Instead, the company--the forerunner of Southern Pacific Railroad--realized that the property was more valuable for its timber and kept it. Ultimately, the federal government seized the land and turned it over to the BLM.

On the squares of land held by private owners, logging has eliminated nearly all of the old-growth forests. The bureau has clear-cut 80% of its old-growth forests over the last 50 years, replacing them with tree farms that are not likely to provide adequate habitat for the spotted owl for decades.

“The Bureau of Land Management is a very special problem,” said environmentalist Wendell Wood of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. “Every year, the BLM has cut more and more of the owl habitat. They say timber cutting is all they are required to do.”

The law granting the lands to the bureau created an unusual dependence on the timber harvest among local governments. Half the money from the bureau’s timber sales is divided among 18 counties, enabling them to keep property taxes and other assessments extraordinarily low. Douglas County gets more than $25 million a year from the bureau’s timber sales, nearly a third of its budget.

This year, the bureau had planned to harvest 750-million board feet of lumber on its Oregon lands, but the hold on the 44 sales has reduced the planned take to 423-million board feet.

Robertson welcomed Lujan’s decision to convene the Endangered Species Committee--made up of six Bush Administration officials and an Oregon resident to be named by the President. The commissioner said he hopes that the God Squad will consider the importance of logging to the region’s economy, not just its effect on the spotted owl.

In the history of the Endangered Species Act, the panel has been convened only once before and handled two issues: voting against construction of a dam in Tennessee that endangered the snail darter and voting for construction of a dam in Wyoming that threatened a rare whooping crane.

Now, with the law up for renewal, logging advocates and environmentalists agree that the God Squad’s decision on the spotted owl could set the stage for Congress to relax federal protection of endangered species.

“I don’t think it’s meant as a referendum on the Endangered Species Act,” Robertson said, “but I think that’s going to be one of the outcomes.”