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Biscuit Fire: Log it or leave it?

Article Excerpt
Byline: Scott Maben The Register-Guard

Familiar foes are racing toward a new showdown in Southern Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains over what would be one of the largest post-fire logging operations of modern times.

That environmental groups and the timber industry are at odds over the 500,000-acre Biscuit Fire recovery surprises no one.

What makes this battle one to watch is that the outcome could control how the nation handles salvage and recovery from large forest fires for years to come.

Among the most pressing issues in the fight is a push by conservationists to preserve roadless areas.

On the other end of the debate, mill owners and local officials speak of the urgency to cut the timber before it rots and use the wood to jolt the sagging economy.

The Bush administration, determined to avoid legal challenges that tie up logging proposals for years, is keeping a close eye on how the dispute plays out. The plan is on a fast track: The public comment period ends Jan. 5, and a decision is expected soon after that. Scott Conroy, supervisor of the Siskiyou and Rogue River National Forest, will pick one of seven salvage logging and forest restoration options outlined in a thick environmental analysis released this month.

Conroy's preliminary choice calls for logging 518 million board feet in areas that total about 30,000 acres. That's enough wood to keep mills from Roseburg to Medford to the coast busy for a year or more.

It's also five times the amount that Forest Service officials proposed last spring at the start of the analysis. Interest groups and the public weighed in with suggestions that ranged from even greater logging to letting nature reclaim the charred landscape without human intervention....

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