The lumber is the salvage
timber from the Power Fire in October of 2004. Two environmental groups earlier this year successfully
halted shipment of the timber from fire-damaged portions of the Eldorado forest
to Sierra Pacific Industries’ Tuolumne County mill.
According to the Union Democrat over the summer, four groups, three based in Tuolumne County, got involved in the lawsuit when they asked a U.S. District Court judge to increase a nominal bond posted by the environmental groups suing the U.S. Forest Service over the timber. This request was based on the fact that a larger bond could have helped cover the Forest Service's losses as the dead timber from the sale rots while the lawsuit makes it way through the legal system, according to Mike Albrecht, president of Sierra Resource Management, a Sonora logging company. However the Federal judge disagreed, and two weeks ago decided to leave the bond amount at $1,000, and not to raise it to $200,000, as suggested by SPI. "There's no need to post an exorbitant bond," said Rachel Fazio, an attorney with the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute, one of the groups that filed suit.
The
judge ruled, among other reasons, the environmental groups didn't have enough
money to post a larger bond. "We think that's not true," said Damien
Schiff, a lawyer with Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit
legal group representing the Tuolumne County Alliance for Resources and
Environment, Sierra Resource Management, the Tuolumne County Chamber of
Commerce and the California Forest Counties Schools Coalition. Fazio said it's "somewhat
ridiculous" that Tuolumne County groups, not the Forest Service, are
spearheading the bond issue. "We're having to deal with motions from
people who shouldn't even be involved in the case," she said.
On Monday, Schiff filled a request asking the District Court judge to reconsider his Nov. 20 ruling on the bond issue. Schiff said a decision to file a formal appeal has yet to be decided. "The case is still alive and I think we're going to appeal," Albrecht said Monday.
Albrecht said 30 to 40 million board-feet of timber from
the sale remains on the Eldorado forest floor. That amount, he said, is roughly
twice what the Standard mill gets from the Stanislaus National Forest in a
year. A board foot is an inch-thick, foot-square piece of lumber.
Albrecht guessed that by springtime, 80 to 90 percent of the wood will be
rotten. "It's very
disappointing," he said. "It indicates to me how out of touch the
legal system is with what is actually happening on the ground."
The legal challenges came after the Earth Island Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity alleged that the Forest Service used poor science to determine which trees died or are dying because of the Power and Freds fires in the Eldorado forest and failed to compensate for the logging's impact on different species, such as the California spotted owl and the black-backed woodpecker.
From May to
September 2005, SPI hauled wood from burned portions of the Eldorado forest to
its mill in Standard. "They basically clear cut Freds and a majority of
Power," Fazio said. "I don't know how greedy they have to be."
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March sided with the environmental
groups by ruling that allowing logging to continue could cause too much damage
to the forest while the lawsuit proceeds. This ruling overturned a U.S. District Court decision in
August 2005, which allowed the logging to go as planned. Fazio said she's not
sure when the case will be resolved. The Forest Service, she said, could
try and take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court or they could talk settlement.
"These things don't get resolved quickly, that's for sure," she said.