Sell-out in Montana

A tremendous victory. A kick in the ass of the timber industry. A huge step forward for native fish conservation. A win whose significance cannot be overstated. These are the chest-beating sound bytes that have been broadcast by a cadre of environmentalists to support their settlement of a lawsuit against the Forest Service over plans to clearcut thousands of acres in Montana's Bitterroot National Forest, along the spine of the Continental Divide.

But it turns out that the deal is much less than it's cracked up to be by the green deal makers. Indeed, the vaunted settlement, hatched with the Bush administration, will give a green light to one of the largest timber sales ever on public forest lands in the US in an area that is home to grizzlies, wolves, and rare trout.

Here's the story.

In the summer of 2000, fires raced across the Bitterroot forests, charring trees, burning down houses, generating media hysteria, and whetting the appetite of the big timber companies, who've come to learn that when there are fires, cheap timber sales soon follow.

Summer fires are nothing new for these Rocky Mountain forests. It's a fire-dependent ecosystem. But the Bitterroot valley is no longer a wilderness landscape, and you can blame that on John Denver, whose song "Wild Montana Skies" hit the airwaves in the '70s like a real estate ad for this once sleepy valley. A land raid of rich back-to-the-landers ensued, with multi-million dollar hobby ranches at the edge of the wilderness. They like the view, but they don't like the rhythms of the ecology: they want fire suppression, predator control, and privacy from hikers.

The locals bought into timber industry hype that clearcutting reduces fire risk. In fact, just the reverse is the case. Logged-over forests produce more and bigger fires than natural forests. But the Forest Service was only too willing to comply. They quickly cobbled together what would be billed as the largest timber sale in US history, offering at a bargain rate more than 190 million board feet of timber from 46,000 acres of forest.

But they overreached. Anxious to please its financial backers in big timber, the Bush administration issued an emergency ruling exempting the sale from any kind of administrative challenge or appeal. The Sierra Club and six other groups (Friends of the Bitterroot, The Ecology Center, American Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Rivers Council, and the Wilderness Society) quickly filed suit against the plan.

A huge victory was won in the courtroom of federal Judge Don Molloy, who excoriated the Forest Service for traducing numerous federal laws. A preliminary injunction against the sale was handed down. The Forest Service took its appeal of the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court, which sent the case back to Judge Molloy asking him to rule quickly on whether or not some sales could proceed. The judge ordered both sides to enter into a mediation process, overseen by federal Judge Michael Hogan. Hogan is a notorious right-winger and born-again Christian whose loathing of environmentalists is equaled only by his hatred of abortion providers.

It's important to note that Judge Molloy did not order the parties to agree to a settlement, but merely to attempt to reach a deal. He was prepared to make a final ruling on the case within a week. But the environmentalists were apparently itching to deal. In an excellent story in the Missoulian, Sherry Devlin quotes Sierra Club president Jennifer Ferenstein as saying the plaintiffs met on February 3 and faxed a settlement proposal to the Bush administration that included a concession that would allow areas to be logged within days. "The signal we gave is that we are willing to consider an option that put people on the ground," Ferenstein said. "We can be flexible."

The Bush administration said that the enviro proposal was a good starting point for negotiations. The opposing sides convened for a two-day session in Missoula and the deal was hatched. It calls for 60 million board feet of timber sales and clearcutting on about 14,000 acres of land. The enviros signed away the right to challenge those sales, regardless of their environmental consequences.

Then came the blizzard of self-serving press releases. "This is a great improvement for our wild forests, wildlife habitat, native fish and, perhaps most importantly, public participation," crowed Ferenstein, president of the Sierra Club. "We have preserved the right of the public to appeal Forest Service decisions that would harm the National Forests they enjoy and want to protect."

This effusion is a little bit much to take. Ferenstein is talking about a mediation session with the Prince of Darkness himself, Mark Rey. Rey, formerly the timber industry's top lobbyist, is now the undersecretary of agriculture overseeing the Forest Service. Rey doesn't play nice and he's not given to gentle "discourses" with environmentalists, whom he considers to be the equivalent of domestic terrorists.

Others painted a different picture. One plaintiff spoke of the negotiating sessions as "grueling," "painful," and "torturous." Indeed, this deal reminds many forest veterans of the so-called Deal of Shame, the 1993 debacle where environmentalists agreed to a request from the Clinton administration to give up an injunction blocking timber sales in ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest. The deal fractured the environmental movement, jump-started logging in the Northwest and set the tone for the Clinton administration's duplicitous environmental policies.

Revealingly, the Bitterroot deal involves many of the same players, most notably the environmental attorneys who signed off on the deals: Earth Justice (a.k.a. the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) and the Western Environmental Law Clinic.

A close examination of the fine print of the Bitterroot settlement deal may reveal what was truly afoot. In part, the settlement says: "(10) Nothing in this settlement shall be construed as an admission of fact or law by any party on the issue, including plaintiff's claim that the Forest Service has violated the Appeals Reform Act. (11) This settlement resolves all claims that Plaintiffs have asserted or could have asserted in this litigation, except as provided in paragraph 12 below. (12) Plaintiffs retain the right to seek attorney's fees under applicable law. (13) This agreement embodies the entire terms and conditions of the agreement between the parties."

In other words, it seems the only real victory in this case was the right of enviros' attorneys to have their legal fees reimbursed.

"This is another trees for fees deal," says Michael Donnelly, a forest organizer from Oregon. "It's no longer about what gets saved, it's about how they can get their expenses paid for and then spin it in the press. This is what happens when the environmental movement becomes bureaucratized, when it lives off of foundation grants and political pats-on-the-back. It's lost its spine and its moral purpose."

So 60 million board feet of clearcuts are sanctioned without regard to their damage to an already stressed ecosystem. The enviros involved have tried to downplay the damage these clearcuts will cause. But think of it this way: it will still represent one of the largest timber sales in Montana history. The sale volume is four times what the entire Bitterroot forest has been logging per year for the past decade or so. The amount of acreage that will be clearcut is 2,000 acres larger than the Charles C. Deam Wilderness in the Hoosier National Forest in Indiana.

"The fact is that the salvage sales released without appeal in the settlement will be the single largest timber sale in the US, including Alaska, that is currently in play," says Brian Byrd, an ecologist with the Forest Conservation Council. "People on the ground in the Bitterroot have stated that several of the salvage units are in areas of low intensity burn and contain some rather healthy and large trees. I believe that these sales could have been stopped for sure on the procedural claims and possibly stopped on the substantive claims. But the public now believes that large-scale logging is not a problem. We will face this for years, as fire is not going away, and the USFS knows its last stronghold for the logging program is salvage and 'fuels reduction.'"

In theory (and in its fundraising letters), the Sierra Club is a "zero cut" organization, meaning it opposes commercial logging on all national forest lands. The other plaintiffs on the suit are members of the Roadless Area Coalition, meaning they oppose all logging in roadless areas, which are de facto wilderness lands. The Bitterroot settlement not only gives the green light to a blitzkrieg of new logging, but much of it will take place inside these roadless areas, the most sacrosanct and vulnerable lands in the mountains.

"This deal stinks so badly it makes me feel like never identifying myself as an environmentalist again," says Steve Kelly, a longtime forest activist in Montana. "There was no reason to throw in the towel; the fight had only started. If the enviros had really won, the timber industry would have sent out log truck convoys in protest. Instead, they're waiting in line for the clear-cutting to begin."

Victory? Somebody should ask the grizzlies and bull trout. They won't be around long if these kinds of sell-outs continue to be hailed as triumphs on their behalf.