Posted on 07/21/2004 5:23:34 AM PDT by veronica
TULSA - Blake Champlin, a Tulsa lawyer and environmental activist, died Monday at his home when a tree supporting a hammock fell and crushed him.
Champlin, 45, died instantly, said Gerald Hilsher, an attorney with Shipley & Kellogg, Champlin's former law firm.
Champlin was a member of Sierra Club and Save the Illinois River, and the director of Keep Tulsa Beautiful. He also pushed for an agreement between Oklahoma and Arkansas on phosphorus limits in northeast Oklahoma waters, Hilsher said.
Champlin was a past director of the Oklahoma Society of Environmental Professionals and a past chairman of the Environmental Law Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association.
He was a featured speaker at numerous environmental seminars throughout the region and represented many individuals in northeast Oklahoma who sued poultry companies for alleged water and air pollution, specifically around the Grand Lake area.
Champlin became a named-partner of Shipley, Jennings & Champlin and, in 2002, he joined the Tulsa law firm of Boone, Smith, Davis, Hurst & Dickman, where he headed their environmental law department.
A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa.
If a tree falls on an envirowhacko in the woods, will they make a grunt?
To add to the irony, he was reading Shakespeare.
What more can be said - except that he should have used some pesticides on the tree - a long time ago.
Gee, even "Mother Nature" thinks they need to
be "sat on". I bet they still won't believe "she"
is big enough to take care of "herself".
Oops...
That one had me in tears. This one, I giggled, then felt a little bad about it, then giggled some more.
Oh man!
You can't make this stuff up!
Too funny!
WHAT????
This brute had virtually enslaved this tree, forcing it to bear his weight until it fell to the ground and died from the strain?
This is OUTRAGEOUS! I bet if you looked in his house, he even had furniture made of WOOD!
What an evil, evil man...
The sad result of tree abuse.
Well....live by the tree....die by the tree.....
Especially after the bears got the bear activist recently.
Living on Tulsa Time!!
I call that a twofer.
Logging Protester Killed by TreeFORTUNA, Calif. (AP) -- Officials of a logging company and an environmental group fighting its work agreed it was an accident that a protester was killed by a falling tree.
David Chain, 24, a member of Earth First!, was killed Thursday at a remote redwood logging site as he and others tried to dissuade tree fellers.
Earth First! had staged a 12-day protest against the logging of an ancient redwood stand along Grizzly Creek, in a ravine near the mill town of Fortuna, about 300 miles north of San Francisco.
Eight members were arrested Wednesday on trespassing charges. Thursday was the first day the group engaged in the more aggressive tactic they call "cat and mouse," putting their bodies in harm's way.
Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said the logging crew did not see anybody in the area and had no idea Chain, who was known as "Gypsy" by environmentalists, was standing nearby.
"They felled a tree and apparently heard some yelling, and then the feller was cutting the tree into segments when the body was found under a limb," Campbell said. He added that sheriff's investigators said Chain's death was "an unfortunate accident," and that the company would conduct its own investigation of the incident.
Earth First! spokesman Josh Brown agreed.
"We have no details and we're not assigning blame to the feller or Pacific Lumber Company or anybody," he said. "It's just a complete tragedy."
The protesters say the logging, on land adjacent to a "lesser cathedral" of centuries-old redwoods purchased under the $495 million Headwaters Agreement, is destroying the protected habitat of the marbled murrelet, an endangered sea bird that nests in the tops of the majestic trees.
The state-federal agreement would turn about 7,500 acres of Pacific Lumber forest, including 3,000 acres of old-growth redwoods, into a public preserve. Environmentalists have protested the accord, saying it should include protections for the rest of the 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest Complex.
And it was a 'two fer' deal too!
A lawyer AND envirotwit!
*chuckle*
Gotta love it.
to bad about the hammock
LOL! I was all ready with the I-didn't-agree-with-him-but it's-a-shame-he-was-killed line.
Then I noticed the 'L' word.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.