Forest Service Reverses Superior Forest Logging Decision
12/7/97
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Headline: Forest Service Reverses Superior Forest Logging Decision
Source: Star Tribune Online
www.startribune.com
Date: 12/7/97
Byline: Dean Rebuffoni
Copyright 1997 Star Tribune. All rights reserved
Superior logging decision reversed
At the urging of environmentalists, the U.S. Forest Service's top regional
official has reversed a subordinate's decision that logging on a remote,
9,000-acre tract in northeastern Minnesota would not significantly affect
the environment.
The unusual action by Regional Forester Robert Jacobs will set back any
logging on the tract, which is within the Superior National Forest near
Greenwood Lake, 30 miles north of Two Harbors. Before logging can occur,
Forest Service officials must determine whether parts of the tract should
be set aside as natural areas and preserved from logging.
Jacobs, based in Milwaukee, acted on an appeal by the Superior Wilderness
Action Network (SWAN), a regional environmental group. Its president, Ray
Fenner of St. Paul, said Saturday that SWAN wants to block logging and
preserve what he says are scarce natural areas within the Greenwood Timber
Sale area.
That's the 9,000-acre tract in question. As part of a decision announced
in September by David Thom, the district ranger, private loggers would be
sold about 8 million board feet of timber within the area.
That timber sale would result in the clear-cutting of about 710 acres of
black spruce and 380 acres of aspen and balsam fir.
Fenner filed an appeal for SWAN, challenging Thom's decision that the
logging would have no significant environmental effects. Fenner charged
that the plan "would exceed the Forest Service's current allotment for
logging old black spruce in the Superior Forest." He said the Greenwood
area has ecologically significant resources, including a large block of
intact, interior forest with old trees.
"It also is one of the best viewing spots in Minnesota for the boreal owl
[a scarce species]," he said. "We just don't have many such places left in
the Superior Forest, because it has been logged so heavily."
SWAN's appeal prompted a Forest Service review, and a reviewing officer
agreed that Thom's plan was not consistent with the agency's overall plan
for managing the Superior Forest.
Jacobs concurred. He determined that while Thom's decision didn't violate
federal law or agency policy, the ranger did not provide an adequate
rationale for allowing logging in parts of the Greenwood area identified
as having high potential for being set aside as natural areas.
Thom said Saturday that additional studies, taking up to perhaps four
months, will be needed to "fully address the points raised" by Jacobs.
That means the Forest Service is "retaining options for [designating]
natural areas on roughly 7,900 acres" in the tract, Thom said. He proposes
to allow logging on the remaining 1,100 acres.
Thom stressed that his original plan would not have allowed logging within
a large block of black spruce older than 60 years, nor within a stand of
140-year-old white cedars.
This is the third time in the past year that the Forest Service, under
pressure from environmentalists, has halted logging plans in the two
national forests in Minnesota: the Superior and the Chippewa.
It suspended sales of old pine trees at the Little Alfie site in the
Superior Forest last December after a 12-day protest there and after being
sued by the group Earth Protector. The Forest Service recently decided to
allow logging at Little Alfie, although on a reduced scale. Several groups
are appealing that decision.
Last month, the Forest Service suspended indefinitely its plan to allow
logging on a site in the Chippewa Forest used by a pair of nesting
goshawks. That plan is opposed by the Minnesota Center for Environmental
Advocacy and the Audubon Society.
And in the wake of the Little Alfie protest, the Forest Service identified
38 other Superior tracts where it also apparently failed to comply with
environmental law. It independently decided to prepare new environmental
assessments of the sites.