State asks U.S. to OK plan protecting timber industry against legal action

[icymist]

Thursday, February 10, 2005

State asks U.S. to OK plan protecting timber industry against legal action

By ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

OLYMPIA -- Citing a controversial plan to tighten logging rules to help salmon, state officials asked the federal government yesterday to give Washington's timber industry 50 years of protection against Endangered Species Act prosecutions and lawsuits.

Federal officials, proclaiming themselves "delighted," said approval is virtually assured once the public is given 90 days to weigh in on the plan, which covers about 60,000 miles of streams branching out across 9.1 million acres -- more than one-fifth of the state.

The plan obligates timber companies to leave buffers of uncut trees along some streams, fix roads that bleed dirt into rivers, restrict timber-cutting on steep hillsides in danger of landslides and take other steps to keep rivers clean and cold.

But the scientific basis for the so-called Forest & Fish Plan was ridiculed by independent scientists after it was embraced by the Legislature in 1999.

Environmentalists also protested but now say they're working to improve the plan.

More:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/211441_forests10.html

[whistle]

1. Red wood forests are a thing of the past!

[geomon666]

2. 50 years!

They haven't destroyed that land enough? They need 50 years of guilt free destruction.