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SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
COURT BLASTS FOREST SERVICE LAND
TRADE
SUPERFICIAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
CITED;
WEYERHAEUSER ORDERED TO STOP
LOGGING
Thursday, May 20, 1999
Section: THE HANDLE
Edition: IDAHO
Page: B1
BYLINE: By Ken Olsen Staff writer

A federal court rebuked the U.S. Forest Service for barely gauging environmental
problems with a large land trade it made with Weyerhaeuser Co. in Western
Washington.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the timber company to stop logging
until the Forest Service completes another environmental analysis, according to this
week's ruling. The court also left open the door for undoing the trade if that proves to
be the most environmentally sensible decision.
The ruling will make future public-private land swaps - such as a possible
2-million-acre trade in Idaho - much more difficult, land exchange opponents predict.

Weyerhaeuser agrees.

``I think it's fair to say it will have a chilling effect'' on future land swaps the Forest
Service and other federal agencies approve in-house, said Frank Mendizabal, a
Weyerhaeuser spokesman. It is unclear, however, whether the court ruling means
companies will seek to have more exchanges legislated by Congress, he said.

The court ruling means the Forest Service will have to undertake more extensive
environmental studies on its other land exchanges. ``This certainly puts the public in a
position of more strength,'' said Janine Blaeloch, who started on the suit while she
was a member of Pilchuck Audubon, and now runs the Western Land Exchange
Project. ``Now we will be given enough information to judge these things.''

The Forest Service isn't commenting on the decision.

Clearwater Land Exchange, an Orofino company that proposed and then withdrew
the giant Idaho exchange, says it will have to review the Weyerhaeuser case before
judging whether it will stymie future swaps. The company has arranged dozens of
trades in the Northwest in the past 30 years - including in North Idaho and Eastern

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Washington.

The Forest Service gave Weyerhaeuser 4,400 acres of public land in the watershed
that supplies Tacoma's drinking water in 1998. The public took title to 30,320 acres
of mostly logged land along Interstate 90.

The Muckleshoot Tribe and Pilchuck Audubon Society sued two years ago.
Tuesday, the appeals court ridiculed the Forest Service's environmental study of the
trade.

``If we were to adopt the Forest Service's approach, the cumulative impacts of land
exchanges would escape environmental review,'' the appeals court said. ``The
problem is compounded by the very general and one-sided analysis.''

The Forest Service ``abused its discretion'' by not considering consequences of

Weyerhaeuser logging the land it got from the public. The agency ignored the effects
of another land exchange in the same area it was conducting with Plum Creek
Timber Co., the court said.

The agency didn't give ample analysis to deed restrictions that would have required
Weyerhaeuser to log under more stringent federal laws. Finally, the court criticized
the Forest Service for saying it didn't consider buying the property on the grounds it
wasn't sure the money would be available.

Simultaneously, the Forest Service is willing to rely on equally ``speculative funds'' to

say it will restore the Weyerhaeuser lands it was obtaining, the court noted.

Weyerhaeuser, meanwhile, says it wants to work with the Muckleshoot Tribe,

Audubon and others to resolve the problems as quickly as possible.

Still, ``we're saddened the many public benefits from these exchanges may not be
realized,'' Mendizabal said, including ``removing thousand of acres from
checker-board ownership and public opportunities on lands that went to the Forest
Service.''

The ruling could be problematic if it pushes companies to get Congress to do more

trades legislatively, land trade opponents acknowledge. That's because Congress
often waives the environmental studies the Forest Service and other agencies have to
perform.

``Legislated exchanges have always been there as a backlash,'' Blaeloch said. ``But a
lot of hell has been raised about this issue and I don't think any kind of land exchange
is going to be as easy to slide through.

``This process was bad and needed to be challenged and we are in a better place to
challenge legislated exchanges because of increasing public awareness.''

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