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Testimony by Bonnie Phillips 

 July 23, 1996 



communities and to protect and restore salmon populations. In addition, the 

 Forest has proposed logging and roadbuilding through three huge roadless cireas. 



Other violations are occurring throughout these forests. One challenge to 

 the Clinton Plan seiles was made by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund on 

 behalf of Oregon Natural Resources Council and Umpcjua Watersheds, Inc. The 

 four sales are located in a pristine watershed that provides important fish 

 habitat. However, the sales were planned without any input from fisheries 

 biologist. Although, in the final stages of sale planning, a forest fisheries 

 biologist concluded that proposed logging would severely degrade the aquatic 

 habitat and make it inhospitable to fish. 



The timber rider provides for judicial review of Option 9 sales for arbitrary 

 and capricious decision-making. It was on this basis that these sales were 

 challenged. However, in December of 1995, Judge Hogan disnnissed the 

 challenge and ruled that (1) Option 9 sales offered since the logging rider's 

 enactment carmot be reviewed by the courts; and (2 Option 9 sales that were 

 offered before enactment of the timber rider must be awarded, released, and 

 logged under the original contract terms. 



There are other processes put in place by the Clinton Plan, the most 

 significant of which is Watershed Analysis, that are being done v^ath greater 

 inadequacy and with less and less public involvement as time passes. 



3. Salvage Sales . Finally, the salvage component is also seriously jiffecting the 

 viability of the Plan. I give one example. Tlie 2-million acre Mt. Baker- 

 Snoqualmie National Park is the largest recreation forest in Washington State 

 and Oregon and extends from the Canadian border to Mt. Rainier National Park 

 in Western Washington. Two weeks ago I received a notice from the Forest 

 Service that they were planning a salvage sale called Canyon Salvage in a very 

 important ecological area. Let me explain this area and what the Forest Service 

 may do. Under the Clinton Plan designation, it is in the Independence Late 

 Successional Reserve and is a key watershed. Canyon Creek is a tributary of 

 the Stillaguamish River, a very important area for threatened coho salmon. The 

 planning area is 1300 acres, although only 400 of these acres have 50% or more 

 defoliation from the hemlock looper, an insect rarely seen any more in old 

 growth forests. The Forest Service says they will build no new roads. 

 However, in order to access and remove the defoliated trees, most of which are 

 along the riparian areas of Canyon Creek, they will have to log a great number 

 of live, healthy old growth cedar trees, wiiich are not affected. Tliey will have 

 to log through and destroy the Forks Trail, a favorite hiking trail for families in 

 nearby tov^nns. They will oe logging in an area of very steep and unstable soils. 



They wiH NOT be ervhancing the old growth, or late successional reserve, 

 ecosystem. Currently, only 40% of the Independence Reserve is in late 

 successional forests-this area has been heavily logged in the past— the cutting of 

 green old-growth cedar and defoliated smaller and younger hemlock will bring 

 tnis percentage down even further. 



