Controversial Helicopter Pad Helps Save Worker’s Life

Helicopter landing pads cleared for a proposed logging project on the Boise National Forest are troubling to environmentalists suing to try to stop the timber sale.

The plaintiffs say the pads are a clear signal that the agency has already decided to log the roadless area, where blue-paint rings mark trees that would be cut.

The Forest Service disagrees, saying the pads are needed to get crews in to do environmental analyses.

And one landing pad was a literal lifesaver for a Forest Service worker who went into shock from an allergic reaction to an insect bite last summer, says Assistant U.S. Atty. Deborah Hill, who represents the government in the case.

A helicopter transported the worker to a hospital for emergency medical care, she said.

“That person certainly would have died if they had not had access to that,” Hill said.

Ron Mitchell of the Idaho Sporting Congress, the plaintiffs, has a different perspective on that story.

“If he wasn’t out there, he wouldn’t have gotten stung,” Mitchell said. “It was the marking of the 80,000 trees that created the situation where he could get stung or bit by a rattlesnake.”