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logging and does nothing to address fire suppression, which all sides agree is 

 the root cause of this overstocking problem. Tlie salvage sales under the rider 

 are losing taxpayer's money, and causing the same environmental damage as 

 regular timber sales. In addition, there are many cases where the "salvage" 

 sales contain nothing but healthy green trees that have been renamed "salvage" 

 so that environmental controls and citizen appeals will not apply. 



Monitoring efforts by concerned citizens have revealed that the Forest 

 Service is not complying with President Clinton's directive to comply with our 

 nation's environmental laws. FoUovwng is a list of abusive sales under the rider 

 in Washington State that the Clinton Administration needs to take immediate 

 action to cancel. 



Colville National Forest 



1. Gatorson Timber Sale: The Forest Service has planned and withdrawn 



the Gatorson sale four times since 1990. The 

 Gatorson sale would log nearly 12 million board 

 feet of timber from the western portion of a 

 unique and undeveloped 8000-acre Jackknife 

 Roadless Area. The geography of the area is 

 characterized by steep cliffs and ridges that drop 

 precipitously into the South Fork of Boulder 

 Creek. In a forest logged of cilmost all of its old 

 growth trees, the Gatorson sale area constitutes 

 one of the last refuges for solitude-seeking 

 wildlife species, especially cougar, black bear, and 

 wolves, the sale area is also of great importance 

 to sensitive fish species, such as tne bull trout. 

 Seven miles of new roads will cross stream 

 channels multiple times, contributing tons of 

 choking sediment into Boulder Creek. Contact: 

 Tim Coleman, Kettle Range Conservation Group, 

 509/775-3454. 



2. East Cttrlew Sale: A green timber sale, the East Curlew Sale, will log 



through one the largest remaining roadless are a 

 complex in eastern Washington. Contact: Sara Folger, 

 Inland Empire Public Lands Council, 509/838-4912. 



The sale calls for logging rare old-growth ponderosa pine and western 

 larch forests and additioixal green timber from aojacent unburned areas that were 

 part of an earlier timber sale. The Forest Service admits the Copper Butte fire 

 was good for the forest, because it burned stands of overcrowded trees, 

 overmature trees, or diseased trees. Tlie agency also admits that salvaging the 

 area will have substanticil impacts on soils and water quality. 



If the ecological abuses are not persuasive enough, the economic abuses 

 should be. The sale is a big money loser for the taxpayer. In environmental 

 documentation for the sale, the Forest predicted that the agency would receive a 

 bid of $888,000 for the trees and that it would make more than $1 million. That 



