MonLbly Planet A PUBL/CA TION OF THE ASSOC/A TED STUDENTS
December 1982 Volume 4 No.2
ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Historic Settlement Reached in DNR Lawsuit by Steve Gerkey A major breakthrough in a legal dispute between state environmental groups and the Department of Natural Resources (I:NR) over its State Forest Land Management Program (FI.MP) occurred Septent>er 16, when all parties finally agreed to a settlement. The 1979 lawsuit, 2.1 Million Acres of Trees v. Bert Cole, was diS11Ussea":" Estafiishedwas ~agreement anong 43 groups and iooividuals representing Washington state, local environmental coalitions, state trust land beneficiaries, forest iooustries and the public. Because colleges benefited fran the public trust IT01ies generated by these ti.nt>er sales, fellow Huxley students Greg Sobel, Gene Meyers and I, were student plaintiffs. With the settlement, I:NR agreed to rewrite its management plan to address its responsibilities ro, and in the future, and to CXXlSider rrore fully environmental ooncerns before making policy decisions. Until the new FI.MP and Environmental Inpact Statements are adopted (until January 31, 1985), timber sales will be managed so that ten percent or rrore of I:NR land containing at least ten percent old growth timber will be left WlCUt in order to CXXlServe and enhance natural resources. The dispute arose over growing citizen ooncern that the I:NR's plan would destroy biological diversity in old growth forests with a policy of intensive tree farming - an even-age Douglas Fir roonoculture. Charles Ehlert, attorney for the
INSIDE •Consolidating Huxley? •Energy Use In Rental Housing •Futures Northwest • The Deep Ecology Movement
plaintiffs and the Washington Environmental Council eloquently described the trees in the ~laint: "Plaintiff 2.1 Million Acres of Trees, StateTrust Eanc:l;-water'; wrraiife, and F.o:>systems are those natural and living things, objects, organisms, and systems consisting of and situated on toose certain forested trust lands of the State of Washington acquired by grant fran the United States of America and subsequently fran other sources, CXXlSisting of 2,059,850 acres, rrore or less, and held in trust, including all the minerals, soil, water, flora, and fauna therein, and including rrore than one hWldred and forty thousand acres of ol~rowth forest containing trees, other vegetation, ahd wildlife of rare and diverse ages and species and their gene pools, which are the results of tens of thousaoos of years of geological and piological creations, change, evolution, and succession, which processes were not begun, managed, or administered by defendants, are not ~leted, and will ex>ntinue unless interrupted by defendants." The task of recreating and reassembling the gene pools, organisms, and resources of Plaintiff Trees," Ehlert said, "exceeds the abilities of the defendants and their agents and enployees, and their loss or destruction would be irreversible." Ehlert went on to describe the Forest Land Management Program: "The program purports to be a plan for growing and harvesting ti.mber for 120 years, fran 1980-2099. Under the program, the defendant would i.rrmediately proceed to 'liquidate' all the old growth ti.mber of mixed ages and species on state forest lands, by clearcutting sutr stantially all of it within the next 12 to 15 years." Ehlert explained that the plan is meant to "implement an 'intensive management' regime on these lands, involving the use of the clearcutting method of harvesting, broadcast burning of slash, re-
planting with Ib.Jglas Fir, and replacing uneven age mixed-species' forests with an even age Douglas Fir IOOnOCulture, spraying with toxic chemical herbicides to kill faster-growing, nitrogen-fixing broadleaf vegetation, the awlication of chemical fertilizers to restore nitrogen to the sites and the thinning aoo early harvesting of the second-growth ti.nt>er." Ehlert went on to say that the program "proposes to establish a 60-year rotation cycle for timber grown in these lands, and to begin by harvesting 805 million board feet of ti.rm,er during the next decade."
Describing the envirormental effects of the proposal, Ehlert said: "The i.q>lementatia, of the proposed program will cause serious, widespread, and adverse effects on the environnent, including erosion, slides, aesthetic defacement, stream sedimentation, and debris, chemical pollution of surface aoo groundwaters, interruption of aquifer recharge, renDVal of vegetation, destruction of lDlique plant species, chemical damage to agricultural crops, reduction in the number and varieties of wildlife, damage to fish aoo aquatic life, damage to unique species of wildlife, destruction of wildlife habitat, creation of barriers to annual 1t0Vement, noise, opening of presently roadless areas to rotor vehicles, injury to property values of areas adjoining forest management operations fran clearcutting, burning, chemical spraying and noise, increased risk of fires, incontinued "]>(lge 10