Washington: Boy Scout honor means if you don’t like logging rules you get the rules changed

Although not finished with its evaluation of a Seattle P-I consultant’s allegations that the Boy Scouts’ Pacific Harbor Council’s 12-acre November clearcut at Camp Delezenne near Elma violated at least three state forest practices rules, officials for the Department of Natural Resources — which approved that logging plan — say that at least one of the claimed violations likely centers on unclear rules. That means rather than issuing violations, fines or other potentially authorized punishments, the agency likely will look instead to clarify a rule manual that was overhauled only three years
ago.

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“Our likely course of action will be to rectify any inconsistencies
between the forest board manual and the science,” Aaron Toso,
spokesman for Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark, said in an
e-mail late Friday. But the consultant hired by the P-I to review the
logging site, who has since revisited it with state forestry
officials, firmly stands by his findings. “I don’t think there’s a
problem with the board manual,” said Chris Mendoza, a conservation
biologist who has reviewed hundreds of state logging plans as a
private consultant and as co-chairman of a state forest practices
science committee.

“The board manual is pretty clear. Rather, I think it’s more of a (DNR) implementation issue.” Mendoza said Monday he made a second visit Feb. 9 to the Camp Delezenne logging site, which abuts protected salmon-bearing Delezenne Creek, with state officials. That visit only solidified his previous findings issued in a report to the P-I late last year, in which Mendoza described “blatant rules violations,” he said. Meanwhile, the new public lands commissioner remains unavailable for comment on the matter, two months after the P-I provided his office with of a copy of Mendoza’s report.

Toso, the spokesman for Goldmark — who won office last fall in part on a reform platform that claimed big timber interests at times have run roughshod over state forestry rules with the DNR’s compliance — said the
commissioner’s schedule is simply jampacked, as he is dealing with
pressing budget shortfalls and other issues. Tim Garber, the Scouting
council’s new executive, also did not return a phone call or e-mail
Monday seeking comment for this story. Officials for the Pacific
Harbors Council previously have said the logging met all state
regulations and was thoughtfully planned to minimize effects on the
camp and the environment. The clearcut primarily targeted an
80-year-old stand of Douglas firs, records show. The harvest brought
in $140,000, council officials said, $20,000 of which was used for a
new roof on a camp building.

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