Posted on 07/24/2007 1:56:26 PM PDT by jazusamo
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Bush administration efforts to boost salvage logging after wildfires suffered a loss Tuesday when a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that had stopped harvest of burned trees in an old-growth forest reserve on federal lands in southern Oregon.
The 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene that stopped the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from logging 23.4 million board feet of timber from 961 acres burned by the Timbered Rock fire outside Medford in 2002.
The appeals court found that BLM's plan to harvest dead and dying trees violated its own management plans and a mandate to maintain and preserve old-growth forest ecosystems, including trees killed by fire, under the Northwest Forest Plan, which was adopted in 1994 to protect habitat for northern spotted owls, salmon and other species.
The court also found that BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to adequately analyze the cumulative environmental damage from scraping 33 miles of fire line and dropping 40,000 gallons of chemical retardant on the area to put out the fire, and the harvest of 6,000 acres of dead trees on neighboring private timberlands owned by Boise Corp.
In a similar case on the 2002 Biscuit fire outside Grants Pass, a different federal judge upheld a U.S. Forest Service plan that involved salvage logging in old-growth forest reserves and roadless areas.
Moonbat judges not only rule burned timber can't be harvested but that BLM violated National Environmental Policy Act for scraping 33 miles of fire line and dropping 40,000 gallons of chemical retardant to stop the original fire.
The inmates are running the asylum.
Ping!
The Ninth Circuit may as well issue their rulings on a chalk board, as the Supreme Court routinely overturns them.
Correct...But this burned timber will rot by the time the legal proceedings grind through the process. Very sad.
That land is owned by the taxpayers to be used by the taxpayers (especially those who buy hunting licenses and fishing licenses or buy camping/day use permits as they pay extra to use the land), not by one lumber company that paid off somebody.
Normally, I blame the laws, but this is the 9th...
(For those of you into logic, yes, I know my first sentence involves a false dilemma.)
Try telling that to the thousands who lost their livelyhoods in the timber industry due to the enviro wackos.
I’ve hunted for over fifty years and hunters and the timber industry survived just fine till the wackos came on the scene.
Yes, I know what you mean but the last sentence in this article says a whole lot about this ruling.
What a shameful waste of resources.
Incredible!
Are you aware of how many states and how many judges are in the ninth circut?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
District of Alaska
District of Arizona
Central District of California
Eastern District of California
Northern District of California
Southern District of California
District of Hawaii
District of Idaho
District of Montana
District of Nevada
District of Oregon
Eastern District of Washington
Western District of Washington
It also has appellate jurisdiction over the following
territorial courts:
District Court of Guam
District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands
Headquartered in San Francisco, the Ninth Circuit is by far the largest of the thirteen courts of appeals, with 28 active judgeships.
Ninth Circut
I had heard they were going to break this circuit up the 9th: Hawaii, California, and Oregon and the rest would be put in a new circuit. Is that a rumor or fact?
I maybe wrong about the alignment, I do know that Montana and Idaho was going to be re-aligned because I dream of living there but won’t as long as the 9th has jurisdiction and/or is made up of libs.
What lumber company and who did they pay off?
Ane exactly what is wrong with a logging company harvesting damaged trees left behind from a wildfire? Seems to me that in a couple of years, the dead wood will only contribute to a greater fire threat.
It is a crying shame that anyone would want to waste a natural resource that was handed to them by God’s lightning strike.
But as far as you are concerned, it’s all about the timber company making a profit from public lands, right?
I’m shocked to hear the 9th circuit court (in San Francisco?) would take this action. Tell me it ain’t so!
Unbelievable!
Moonbat judges not only rule burned timber can’t be harvested but that BLM violated National Environmental Policy Act for scraping 33 miles of fire line and dropping 40,000 gallons of chemical retardant to stop the original fire.
The inmates are running the asylum.”
What is more unbelieveable is that this is on the heels of the devastating fire at South Lake Tahoe which destroyed 264 homes and other outbuildings on June 24th. The Tahoe Regional Planning Authority was not even allowing people to rake up pine needles from the forest floor on their property. This dead tree fuel is only wonderful fuel for the next set of lightning strikes, and there is a storm moving that direction as I type this.
It is painfully obvious that the people making these kinds of decisions never have lived in the rural parts of this country and are totally clueless.
I sincerely hope that the logging companies push this to the US Supreme Court.
BK’s argument is just one that the moonbat libs use to close down our public lands to the timber and mining industry, just saying...
Correct...But this burned timber will rot by the time the legal proceedings grind through the process. Very sad.”
If this fire happened in 2002, the timber is already rotted.
The only reason for pushing this to the US Supremes is to set a precedent for the future.
I can guanantee you that there will be more fires caused by any number of reasons, and that there will be future devastating fires which will leave timber than can be harvested as long as it is within 2 years.
The environazis know ths time window, and they delay the issues to get past that time window.
When There is a bounty on enviros, I will buy lots more ammo.
Correct...I read a couple of good threads on the Tahoe fire, I believe there will be some major changes up there, at least there better be.
Yes. Too many.
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