| July 22, 2000
Despite landmark agreement,
timber companies follow old rules
By REBECCA COOK
Associated Press Writer
OLYMPIA -- When the Washington Legislature approved the Forest and
Fish Act last year, it was praised as a victory for both loggers and
salmon.
The 50-year deal limits logging to help save salmon, while also
shielding timber companies from costly Endangered Species Act
lawsuits.
Gov. Gary Locke called the rules "an example of how saving salmon
should work." The timber industry was so pleased it ran full-page
newspaper ads heralding the "landmark effort initiated by
Washington State's private forest landowners." And the federal
government held up the rules as a model for California, Idaho and
Oregon.
But lost was the fact that the law allows timber companies to continue
logging under old rules, which let them cut more trees that shade
salmon streams, for up to two years.
According to an analysis of state records by The Associated Press,
about 800,000 acres of Washington forest could still be harvested
under the old rules even after the new regulations took effect March
20. The data show a last-minute rush of applications by timber
companies seeking to beat the deadline.
State Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, a key player in the Forest and
Fish Act, said he expected timber companies to adopt the new
regulations quickly.
"Wow," he said after hearing the number of acres that could
still be cut under old rules. "I'm surprised."
If major timber companies are continuing to log under the old rules,
Jacobsen said, "They certainly didn't stick with the spirit of
Forest and Fish."
Timber companies acknowledge they are cutting some trees under old
regulations.
"It's not perfect," said Bill Wilkerson, president of the
Forest Protection Association, the timber industry group that paid for
the newspaper ads.
But it is legal, as Wilkerson pointed out: "The federal agencies
never asked us to change the state law allowing the permits to be
grandfathered in."
Logging permits are good for two years after the state Department of
Natural Resources accepts them. As long as timber companies submitted
permit applications before the rules took effect, they are free to log
under the old rules until those permits expire.
Wilkerson said the old regulations adequately protect salmon, and he
insisted that many timber companies are voluntarily adopting the new
standards. But neither Wilkerson nor the state keeps track of how the
land is being logged.
While some timber companies voluntarily switched to the new rules,
others scrambled to take advantage of the old rules. In the week
before the March 20 deadline, the department was flooded with 592
applications. The permits slowed to a trickle the next week, when only
55 were submitted.
Over the past two years, logging applications have flowed into the
Department of Natural Resources at an average rate of 138 per week. A
spike in applications before new rules take effect is normal, said
Roger Ramsdell of the department's Forest Practices Division.
The AP analysis looked at permits for logging on land with
salmon-bearing streams and tributaries, using DNR data. The records
include acreage, stream type and general location, but not timber
company names. In the two years before the new rules took effect, the
department approved 5,434 such applications covering everything from
clear-cuts to salvage and thinning. Those permits allow 814,688 acres,
an area about the size of Rhode Island, to be "grandfathered
in" under the old rules.
Jacobsen, chairman of the Senate natural resources committee, said the
Legislature could make the Forest and Fish rules stricter if current
timber practices harm salmon habitat. Although the Legislature has the
power to make the rules retroactive, he said that's unlikely.
The Forest Practices Board, which oversees timber regulations, does
not have the power to enforce the rules retroactively. The board
approved the new rules on an emergency basis and is expected to make
them permanent in June 2001.
No one denies the new rules are better for salmon. The timber industry
ads put it this way: "The stringent provisions of Forests &
Fish Forever require widened streamside buffers to provide the shade
necessary to keep streams cool. Reconstructed logging roads will help
reduce the silt that reaches streams, keeping water clean for
salmon."
Creating the Forest and Fish agreement took more than two years of
prickly negotiations. During that time several types of Washington
state salmon were listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Timber companies knew if they didn't change their ways, they could be
hit with the same crippling lawsuits that followed the spotted owl
listing in 1990.
Environmentalists quit the negotiations in July 1999, complaining the
regulations wouldn't be tough enough. But the National Marine
Fisheries Service approved the rules, meaning that timber companies
abiding by them get immunity from Endangered Species Act lawsuits.
The biggest changes between the old and new rules are the stream
buffers. Dave Crooker, a general manager with Weyerhaeuser, said the
new rules require timber companies to leave up to 20 percent more
trees around streams.
Weyerhaeuser, the largest timber company in the state, admits to
logging under the old rules, but also says it uses the new standards
on some sites.
"It varies by geography," said spokesman Frank Mendizabal.
Timber managers say implementing the new rules takes time.
"It's working. It's taking us a lot more time than we thought,
but we're getting there," said Russ Paul, land and timber manager
for Crown Pacific, which owns about 225,000 acres of timberland in
Washington. "We can't draw a line and stop operating and
instantly switch over to the new rules. As the old permits wind down,
we will get into the new rules."
But environmentalists say gradual change won't save salmon.
"The timber industry has taken out these ads to tout to the world
their new commitment to saving salmon. If they really were committed
to saving salmon, at the very least they would begin doing better
practices now," said Becky Kelley, program coordinator for the
Washington Environmental Council.
Kelley's organization doesn't think the Forest and Fish rules are
stringent enough to begin with. But, she said, they're far better than
the old ones.
"Everyone knows and acknowledges that the old rules harm
salmon," Kelley said. "For them to be continuing along that
path and trying to convince the public that they've changed is very
dishonest."
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