U.S. urged to quit logging its forests

Tucson group spearheads suit, calls timber sales a failure

A coalition of environmentalists and sportsmen - led by a Tucson group - filed suit in federal court yesterday to halt logging in all 151 national forests.

They claim the U.S. Forest Service should have to admit, under the law, that logging is a money loser that hurts more lucrative and environmentally sound land uses such as hiking, rafting and fishing.

The 20 groups, led by the Tucson-based Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, want timber harvesting stopped until the U.S. Forest Service issues a national forest management plan as required by law, and outlines the plan's environmental impacts.

They filed the lawsuit, which seeks such an injunction for the first time, in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The Forest Service reported in 1997 that nationally it spent $15 million more on logging than private timber companies paid for the wood. In June, it admitted its timber sales loss was almost $89 million.

The figures include the costs of building logging roads and following environmental regulations. Also, as smaller trees are logged, profit margins go down.

The 1974 Renewable Resources Planning Act requires a five-year plan analyzing impacts of logging, mining, grazing and other activities on forest land.

The Forest Service issued a draft plan for 1995 through 2000. It showed that recreational activities in national forests, such as hiking, rafting and fishing, contributed 32 times as much in income and jobs as the timber industry. Entrance fees, travel expenses and equipment purchases were factored in.

Environmental groups contend the plan was never finalized because of an immediate backlash from conservative congressional factions and the timber industry. Those critics argued the Forest Service's analysis overestimated recreational values.

Oregon Congressman Bob Smith demanded last year that the Clinton administration rework the analysis.

Forest Service spokesman Alan Polk said he could not comment on litigation, but noted that Congress ordered no spending on the plan until this month.

Polk said a plan can't be put together soon. ``This is a major undertaking,'' he said.

Peter Galvin, Southwest Center spokesman, said the law could force sweeping changes in forest management.

He said the Forest Service may be forced to admit, for example, that it's environmentally preferable to log private lands and to recycle to supply wood for the nation.

Logging on public lands provides about 4 percent of the nation's wood.

For that, Galvin said, huge swaths of wild country are lost, watersheds are damaged by soil erosion, and habitat for migratory songbirds is destroyed.

Ron Mitchell, executive director of the Idaho Sporting Congress, said he joined the suit to help stop the degradation of natural areas. ``Places in my boyhood that were virtual paradises are now tens of thousands of acres of barren land,'' he said.

He said mud from erosion and logging roads smothers trout spawning beds. .

Marlin Johnson, forestry director for the Forest Service's western region, said a broad injunction could shut down firewood permits for individuals. The Southwest Center said its intent is strictly to stop timber sales.

Tucson-area forests don't have active timber sales. Other Arizona forests, however, log about 20,000 acres a year - a figure that pales next to logging in Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Timber sales are the cheapest way for the service to thin trees to prevent fire and control disease, Johnson said.

The Southwest Center estimates it has won 79 percent of its lawsuits. Two of those shut down commercial logging in New Mexico and Arizona from August 1995 to December 1996, and again from March 1997 until November 1997.

The suits forced the Forest Service to study the effects of tree-cutting on the Mexican spotted owl.

The timber sales program in Arizona and New Mexico lost $2.3 million in fiscal 1997, $1.1 million of that in Arizona.

The Forest Service estimates there are more than 1,200 timber-related jobs in the region, which generate $5.2 million in federal income tax.