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Judge extends ban on disputed timber
sales in Wayne National Forest
(Note: And none dare call it extortion... Timber harvest -- responsible, good for forests AND people timber harvest -- has been held hostage in the poorest part of Ohio for more than Seven Years, while this judge marches in apparent lockstep with implementers of The Wildlands Project.)
August 24, 2004
Ohio News Now
Cincinnati, Ohio - Environmentalists say it's essential to delay the
government's plans for logging, intentional burning and timber sales
in parts of the Wayne National Forest where an endangered bat's
habitat could be destroyed.
A federal judge on Tuesday sided at least initially with the
environmentalists, extending indefinitely a ban she had imposed on the
activities.
Leigh Haynie, a lawyer for the Buckeye Forest Council and Heartwood
environmental organizations, said the ruling will give them time to
argue that the U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service
failed to meet legal requirements for thorough studies to determine
whether the actions could harm an endangered species.
The government says that delays could leave taxpayers with the bill to
remove damaged trees. If the trees can be removed before they rot, a
private contractor who could sell the timber as salvage would handle
the job.
The Forest Service has legal authority to allow logging in national
forests. The government receives part of those revenues.
The Buckeye Forest Council and Heartwood would not object to the
government allowing timber sales as long as federal laws are not
violated, Haynie said.
She said the dispute involves about 1,600 acres in the Ironton
district, one of three sections of the Wayne National Forest in
southern and southeastern Ohio.
U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott, who had issued a temporary order
August 4 to halt the logging and other operations, issued a new order
Tuesday extending the ban indefinitely.
The judge upheld the environmentalists' arguments that if she allowed
the logging and timber sales to proceed, it could destroy the
habitat of the Indiana bat species before environmentalists have a
chance to make their arguments before the court.
The judge estimated that her order could delay the timber sales
for six months while she evaluates further arguments by both sides.
The environmentalists filed suit in April against the U.S. Forest
Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying the agencies
failed to fully evaluate and record their assessments of how proposed
government actions might cause environmental harm.
The government's management plan calls for thinning out trees in one
part of the forest by burning them or chopping them down and allowing
a contractor to collect and sell trees damaged by a February 2003 ice
storm.
The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing Dlott's ruling and had no
comment on it, spokesman Blain Rethmeier said.
The Indiana bat was discovered in the forest in 1997. The Forest
Service has been monitoring the species and found it was still there
last year, Haynie said.
The population of the 3-inch-tall bat has been declining since the
1960s and is now fewer than 400,000, according to the National
Wildlife Federation and the government. The bats breed in caves and in
forests near wetlands.
Various projects elsewhere have been delayed because of concerns about
harming the Indiana bat.
The $158 million Michael A. Fox Highway, an 11-mile southwestern Ohio
highway that links the city of Hamilton with Interstate 75, opened in
December 1999 after delays and expenditure of several hundred
thousand dollars for an environmental study to ensure that the Indiana
bat didn't live in the highway's construction path.
In Ashtabula in northeastern Ohio, a compromise was reached in July
after a one-month construction delay for a new school where a pregnant
Indiana bat was discovered nearby [Not actually on the
site itself].
Officials agreed to move sports fields of the planned
Lakeside High School to accommodate the bat and to create an
18-acre bat habitat.
Copyright 2004, The Associated Press
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