Washington: ’03 enviro-settlement leads to gag order, endless clearcutting of Boy Scout land

A group’s appeal of the council’s state-approved Camp Parsons logging
plan in 2003 was settled after the council agreed to scale back
logging in exchange for critics’ silence, the Seattle P-I has learned.
Under the settlement’s terms, the logging critics were prohibited from
publicly speaking about the controversial timber harvest. As with the
2003 harvest, council officials would not disclose how much money
resulted from any of the recent logging of the 440-acre camp.
Officials also refused to release a copy of the council’s new forest
management plan that recommended the 2007 logging. “It’s not for
public consumption,” said Alicia Lifrak, the council’s chief operating
officer.

Asked if journalists could visit the logging sites, Lifrak
again declined, citing biased journalism and the likelihood a
photographer would “take only pictures that make us look bad.” A
reporter offered to have third-party representatives join any visits
to ensure accurate reporting. A conservation biologist who serves on a
state forestry committee, and a forest advocacy group’s lawyer, who
volunteers as a scoutmaster for a Chief Seattle troop, agreed to
participate. The council declined. “There’s nothing to hide,” Lifrak
said. “We’re being good stewards of the land. You can take our word
for it.” Several camp neighbors say that unlike with recent harvests
by corporations, the Scouts’ logging occurred with no advance notice.
“This happened very quietly,” said Peny Radebaugh, a neighbor and avid
hiker, who says she supports the Scouts.

The 2007 logging plan for
Camp Parsons included buffers around a fish stream and a checklist to
determine if endangered marbled murrelets inhabit the area. (The plan
found they don’t.) Those measures are relatively few compared with the
number of environmental steps taken in the 2003 logging plan. Claiming
that logging would hurt wildlife and damage their lands, a group of
property owners campaigned in 2003 against the council’s selection
harvest on parts of 100 acres on Pulali Point — a wooded peninsula
that state wildlife biologists say harbors some of the area’s best
bald eagle and osprey habitat. Council officials said disease-infested
Douglas firs and other trees needed to be removed to make the forest
safe. They proposed selective patch-cuts — essentially, small
clearcuts — targeting 585,000 board feet of timber. Opponents said
the council wanted to make money, and hired a plant pathologist and a
geologist to examine the Scouts’ property. “I didn’t see anything
warranting … the type of logging they wanted to do, based on
diseased trees,” said the plant pathologist, Olaf Ribeiro, an author
of two textbooks on tree disease.

Opponents drew support from
hundreds, including Scouting volunteers and alumni who signed
petitions and protested. In October 2003, then-Gov. Gary Locke, an
Eagle Scout, sent a letter asking then-Council Executive Brad Farmer
to “reconsider your harvest plan to have less of an environmental
impact.” Opponents ultimately appealed the state-approved logging plan
to the Washington Forest Practices Board. The dispute then quietly
disappeared from the public eye. Days before that case was to be heard
in November 2003, the parties settled, the Seattle P-I has learned.
Without disclosing confidential details, the opponents’ lawyer and
council officials have confirmed some of the deal’s broad terms: The
council agreed to curtail logging in exchange for critics’ public
silence. Some liken the deal to a “gag order.” At least two people
refused to sign the nondisclosure agreement. Others won’t acknowledge
a settlement exists. Some critics blame council administrators’ high
pay as motivation for recent logging and land sales. C. Bradford
Allen, the council’s executive, who refused to comment for this story,
made $226,301 in pay and benefits in 2007, records show. Council
officials, who insist their logging isn’t done to make money, wouldn’t
disclose timber revenues. Lifrak, who made about $120,000 in pay and
benefits in 2007, dismissed critics as merely “a handful” of
malcontents with personal motives.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/scoutslogging/397853_Brinnon29.html

To keep this blog going it has to keep growing!

What’s most essential is you click below to: comment, email, repost,
share this…