Federal Judge Gets Clinton Plan to End Timber Controversy

President Clinton’s timber plan, designed to resolve the long-running dispute over the need for forest habitat versus the need for forest products, Thursday came before a federal judge, who will decide whether the proposal is acceptable under environmental law.

If approved, the plan could settle one of the most divisive environmental battles of recent years--the fight over logging in the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, home of the threatened northern spotted owl.

But if it fails to pass muster with District Judge William L. Dwyer, the detailed document could be in for extensive retooling--or might be scrapped altogether.

For three years, Dwyer barred new timber sales in the region while he waited for a comprehensive federal plan that would ensure the owl’s survival. He lifted the injunction in June, but deferred judgment on the plan until now.

While Justice Department lawyers at the hearing called the plan a workable and innovative blueprint for saving species and supplying lumber, attorneys representing a host of environmental and timber industry groups claimed it is seriously flawed.

“For all its complexity,” said Todd True of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, the government’s proposal “is still a plan for logging large tracts of old growth forest.”

And timber industry attorney Mark Rutzick said that the entire governmental process that led to the plan was riddled with “flaws, errors and uncertainties.”

“We have tried to protect old growth forests while providing a sustainable timber harvest,” countered Lois Schiffer, assistant U.S. attorney general. “We have tried to comply with a myriad of applicable statutes and regulations, as well as the mandates of this court.”

Schiffer argued that the proposal meets all criteria and should be upheld.

Attorneys representing a dozen environmental plaintiffs said that the Administration had ignored reputable scientific studies that they say suggest the plan is inadequate to protect spotted owls and other species, including salmon.

They also said the government didn’t examine the economic boon that derives from a region’s scenic beauty and environmental quality of life.

The Clinton plan for managing the spotted owl forests in Washington, Oregon and Northern California was released in April.

Known informally as Option 9, for the alternative eventually chosen out of 10 that were considered, it came in the form of an environmental impact statement that prescribes far more habitat protection than any plan yet implemented in the vast federal holdings in the Northwest.

Besides designating 10 million acres as basically off-limits to logging, it calls for buffer zones around rivers and streams and sets up “adaptive management areas” as cooperative experiments among forest managers, communities and private interests.

The plan permits 1.1 billion board feet of timber to be harvested annually. That figure compares to the 4.5 billion board feet annual average during the late 1980s.

But the Clinton plan also would allow up to 25% of the 5.5 million acres of the region’s old growth forests not set aside for protection to be harvested. That raised the ire of environmentalists, who see any further cutting of old growth as hazardous, perhaps fatal, to both the owls and the forests.

In the hearing Thursday, Dwyer asked attorneys about taking chances with endangered species.

“If an absolute certainty (of species survival) cannot be found, then doesn’t it follow that some risk is tolerable? How much risk, that’s the question,” he said. At another point he asked a government attorney if there is “room for agencies to take a chance on species protection.”

Dwyer is expected to rule by the end of the year.

While some observers say Dwyer could scrap the plan entirely, environmentalists have indicated a willingness to fine tune those aspects they are challenging.

“We’re not looking at going back through the massive expenditures of time, money and paper that preceded this hearing,” True said. “The basic elements (of the plan) in terms of reserves and key watersheds are not in dispute,” said Mike Anderson, a forest resource analyst for the Wilderness Society. “What is in dispute is, are the reserves adequately protected.”