OCT-NOV 97 - HOME

NEWS FROM THE BIG WILD

After sitting on the powerful Cove II lawsuit until the brink of the legal logging season, Idaho District Judge Boyle ruled against the Idaho Sporting Congress and environmental sanity by rejecting the lawsuit. The ISC then filed for an injunction pending appeal so that the destruction of the Cove/Mallard area might be delayed until the environmentalists have had their full day in court, but that appeal was also denied. The last legal remedy at this stage is a full hearing in front of the 9th circuit which is scheduled for January of 1998. In the interim, the courts have done nothing to protect this vital piece of the lower 48's last Big Wild.

But the summer of 1997 has proven once again that the ability of the legal system to rule justly is far inferior to the power of people committed to finding justice. While the lopsided wheels of justice have been stuck in the same old rut, committed citizens have gotten busy, putting themselves between the chainsaws of the U.S. Forest Service and the forest. On June 15th as the protection of elk calving season expired, two brave souls perched in tripods, blocking the logging road to one of the sales. The protesters remained for three days before being finally plucked with a cherry picker and sent off to jail.

Others declared the 4th day of July a "Forest Independence Day" and set up a blockade on the road to the Jack Creek timber sale. The blockade is an impressive sight. Several activists stay in structures 35 feet off the ground which are designed to make law enforcement risk the activists' lives if they wish to extract them. Others are locked to cement barrels buried in the road. They say they will be safe as long as the Forest Service leaves them-and Cove/Mallard-alone. Timber workers have said their bosses want them to start work on the area "soon," but so far no move has been made to oust the activists, a process which, once begun, promises to drag on for several days.

The Cove/Mallard timber sales have been marked with controversy since they were first proposed. Located on the Nez Perce National Forest, they would carve 145 miles of roads into a pristine roadless area, in order to log thousands of truckloads of timber. Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck has refused to respond to evidence that the sales are breaking the law.

As the Jack Road blockade becomes the second longest road blockade in U.S. history, the battle has moved to Noble, the second Cover/Mallard sale to face opposition. The Noble Timber Sale was blocked for about three hours on August 18th when Jonathan Crowell, 22, locked himself to the gate and was honeycombed within a huge pile of slash and other logging debris. Crowell stopped logging operations, preventing logging crews and four timber-hauling trucks from entering the sale area for three hours.

Crowell explained his actions: "The Noble timber sale is dumping sediment into Little Mallard Creek, which is spawning and rearing habitat for steelhead. With the steelhead newly listed under the Endangered Species Act, the Forest Service is not fulfilling its responsibilities to protect them. We can now add one more crime to a long list of laws broken by the Forest Service in Cove/Mallard."

Crowell was cut off the gate with a special saw, and a skidder was used to remove the slash pile, incidentally tearing off the gate as well. He was arrested by the U.S. Forest Service and taken to Boise to await arraignment on federal charges.

What You Can Do
Write top agency officials and tell them how you feel about logging in roadless areas. Ask them why sales in crucial unroaded wildland habitation are still being offered on the Nez Perce National Forest.

·The Honorable Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, SDA, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington DC 20250.

·Mike Dombeck, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, P.0. Box 96090, Washington DC 20090-6090, Phone (202)205-1661; FAX (202)205-1765.


For More Information

-Contact: Cove/Mallard Coalition, Greg Mullen (208) 882-9755 Native Forest Network, Glenn Marangelo (406)542-7343.

Cove/Mallard Coalition, P0 Box 8968, Moscow, ID 83843, (208) 882-9755 (cove@moscow.com).

Idaho Sporting Congress, P.0 .Box 1136, Boise, ID 83701, (208) 336-7222, <iscsdd®rmci.net>.

Northern Rockies Preservation Project, P.O. Box 625, Boise, ID 83701, (208) 345-8077 (phone and fax)

OCT-NOV 97 -- N.C.Xpress -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor