Biscuit Salvage Logging Postponed Until August
Biscuit Salvage Logging Postponed Until August
7 July 2006
published by publicbroadcasting.net
Portland, Ore., USA — There’s been another delay in executing a controversial new timber sale where the Biscuit fire burned in southwest Oregon. The company holding the Mike’s Gulch logging contract has agreed to wait another four weeks to cut the trees. Ley Garnett hasmore.
The Silver Creek Timber Company says it won’t log in Mike’s Gulch before August 4th, and in return, opponents have dropped their request for a temporary restraining order.
Environmental groups and the Oregon Governor’s office have challenged the timber sale because it would cut trees in a roadless area of the Siskiyou National Forest.
Attorney Kristin Boyles, representing conservation groups, says this is the first case to directly challenge the Bush Administration, which repealed President Clinton’s policy to protect roadless federal forests.
Kristin Boyles: “The repeal of that rule was illegal. It was done without the proper environmental analysis, without the proper concern for endangered species and really without a sort of reasoned decision behind it.”
President Bush’s top forestry advisor argues logging Mike’s Gulch does not violate the roadless rule because helicopters will haul out the logs.
A trial for the case is set for the first of August.
