ENVIRONMENT : New Tactic to Shackle Federal Powers Spreads in Northwest

Prodded by angry loggers and ranchers, some rural counties in the Northwest have passed laws telling the federal government, in effect, to take its spotted owl and stuff it.

“They’ve taken our jobs. They’ve taken our land. It’s time to fight back,” said Randy Pelton, a former logger who helped write a defiant ordinance for Chelan County in north-central Washington.

The local laws, which critics say are unconstitutional, attempt to limit the power of federal agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, to enact land-use regulations without local approval. Some of them threaten forest rangers with fines or jail time.

“It’s really an effort to get around the environmental laws,” said Pat Rasmussen, a Chelan County environmentalist. “It was brought about by people who all in some way make money off public lands--loggers or cattle grazers or developers.”

The laws are called “Catron County ordinances” after the rural New Mexico county that pioneered the tactic. While their legality is in doubt, they are spreading across the Northwest.

Already, three Washington counties and one in Idaho have passed versions. At least 10 more are considering it, backers say.

The National Federal Lands Assn., a property-rights group, estimates that 300 counties--including some in Northern California--are “actively considering” similar ordinances, said spokesman Jim Faulkner.

Fear that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is about to add the coho salmon to the endangered species list has given the movement urgency.

“The spotted owl was bad enough,” said Barbara Mossman, an unemployed truck driver in Forks, Wash. “Now it’s the coho salmon, and next I hear there’s a slimy salamander somebody wants to save--and then there’s the goshawk. It’s got to stop.”

Logging on federal lands in the Northwest has been severely curtailed since 1990, when a federal court order placed the northern spotted owl under protection.

That has hurt Chelan County, where 87% of the land is under public ownership. Many residents graze cattle or cut trees in the 2.2-million acre Wenatchee National Forest, which sprawls from the eastern crest of the Cascades to the grasslands along the Columbia River.

“Anything the Forest Service does in this county affects a lot of people,” said Pelton, a developer. “But the bureaucrats making the decisions are 5,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

When he heard about the New Mexico approach, “boy, it just clicked,” Pelton said. “If we had had this before, the spotted owl would never have happened.”

Catron County ordinances take advantage of a little-noticed section of the National Environmental Policy Act. It says federal agencies must respect “the customs, culture and economic stability” of communities when making land-use decisions.

“If the local ‘customs and culture’ include logging and mining, those practices have a certain status that must be considered in any land-use decision,” said Jeanette Burrage, a Seattle lawyer for the conservative Northwest Legal Foundation, which helped draft the Chelan ordinance.

With the aid of a local historian, a citizens committee wrote a land-use plan defining Chelan County’s “customs and culture” as logging, agriculture, mining and grazing. The county board of commissioners adopted the plan in November.

The first draft included threats of fines and jail terms against federal agents. The final version was tamed down, Commissioner John Wall said.

“We hear people say, ‘You’re threatening the government,’ ” Wall said. “No . . . in our opinion, this ordinance merely asks the state and federal agencies to comply with their own regulations.”

Washington state Atty. Gen. Christine Gregoire has called the ordinance unconstitutional. A similar ordinance in Walla Walla County is being challenged, and one in Idaho was overturned.

Paul Hart, a spokesman for the Wenatchee National Forest, said the Chelan ordinance was not needed or helpful.

“Our position is that we already consult with local government and will continue to do so,” he said.