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Title: Dead Swan Award - 2004,
Author: John Osborn
Date: December 28, 2004 | ID#: 041228
Category: Forests, Superfund, Spokane River & Aquifer
Keywords: Mark Rey, Forest Service, EPA, Coeur d'Alene National Forest, Lake Coeur d'Alene, Spokane River, dead swan, lead, Jeff Holmes, Superfund, Coeur d'Alene Superfund

visits since December 28, 2004

 

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News Release
December 28, 2004

Embargoed until Tuesday, Dec. 28th

For additional information
John Osborn, Sierra Club 509.939-1290 john@waterplanet.ws
Jeff Holmes, Sierra Club 509-868-3337 jeff.holmes@sierraclub.org


Sierra Club bestows
Dead Swan Award on
Mark Rey:
former timber lobbyist
and Undersecretary of Agriculture

SPOKANE, WA--The Upper Columbia River Group of the Sierra Club today awarded the 2004 Dead Swan Award to Mark Rey, former timber lobbyist and Undersecretary of Agriculture for his efforts to increase logging and further damage waters, fish and wildlife that depend on America's 156 National Forests. 

Dead Swan Award - 2004

Mark Rey,
former timber lobbyist
and Undersecretary of Agriculture

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Sierra Club
Upper Columbia River Group
P.O. Box 413
Spokane, WA 99210
(509) 456-3376


Contacts

John Osborn, MD
Conservation Chair
Sierra Club
Upper Columbia
River Group
509.939-1290
john@waterplanet.ws
 

Jeff Holmes
Hunter and Fishing
Program Coordinator
509-868-3337
jeff.holmes@sierraclub.org


Links

Background

A Hundred Years of Logging in the National Forests

Mark Rey

Coeur d'Alene Superfund
Cleanup, Background

 

Toxic Floods Of The Coeur d'Alene, An Illustrated webpage and poster to down load

Sierra Club
Upper Columbia River Group
Northern Rockies Chapter

Sierra Club


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"Mark Rey -- first as timber lobbyist and now as Undersecretary -- shares responsibility for the toxic floods of the Coeur d'Alene," said John Osborn, a Spokane physician and the Sierra Club's conservation chair for its Upper Columbia River group. "For Rey, the dead swan has come home to roost."

During the 1980s and early 1990s Rey was the nation's leading lobbyist for the timber industry. Rey then served as a staff member with the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, leading the committee's work on National Forest policy and Forest Service administration. Rey was sworn in as Undersecretary of Agriculture on October 2, 2001, and since has worked to increase levels of logging in the National Forests.

As former timber lobbyist now in control of the National Forests, Mark Rey reversed protections for 58 million acres of national forest roadless areas. On December 22, the Bush Administration announced new rules, crafted under Rey's oversight, that let local managers approve logging without formal scientific review.

"Mark Rey has his hand on the chainsaw," said Jeff Holmes, an avid outdoorsman and hunter and fishing program coordinator for the Sierra Club. "His decisions cut into every National Forest. But the poster child of damage is the Coeur d'Alene in Idaho."

The Coeur d'Alene National Forest is the most heavily damaged of the 156 National Forests. The Forest Service bulldozed thousands of miles of logging roads into the forest to log the trees. Massive clearcutting is deceptively hidden behind "beauty strips". Floods eat away at river banks, filling in pools and channels with rubble. The region's once premier trout fishery was nearly wiped out and continues to struggle. This summer a judge halted the Iron Honey timber sale, because of further harm to the river's forested watershed.

"The Forest Service has replaced trophy elk and trout with trophy clearcuts," said Holmes. "In pursuit of the green gold, the federal agency took this forest from wildlife riches to wreckage. The resulting floods carry mine wastes that harm the Spokane River fishery as well. Mark Rey is targeting the river's few roadless areas, all that remains of an intact watershed, and final refuge for fish and wildlife. "

The award is named for the tundra swans that migrate through the Coeur d'Alene basin each spring, stopping to feed in wetlands polluted by a century of silver and lead mining. The lead kills the swans. Floods washing across these wetlands also carry lead and other heavy metals into Lake Coeur d'Alene and the Spokane River. Over 1 million pounds of lead flowed into Lake Coeur d'Alene during just a single day of the February 1996 flood, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The floods from cutover forests carry toxic metals into Washington state with implications for aquatic and human health. In 2000 the Spokane Regional Health District posted signs on Upper Spokane River beaches warning of public health risks from lead and arsenic. In 2001 the Health District warned the public not to consume any fish caught between the Idaho state line and Upriver Dam, near Spokane.

"In 2005 the nation will mark the hundredth anniversary of the transfer of the National Forests to the U.S. Forest Service," said Holmes. "The Forest Service needs to acknowledge its mistakes and learn the lessons of the Coeur d'Alene National Forest. These toxic floods are not an act of God, they are the work of pressures to overcut."

"The two federal plans that are supposed to restore the Spokane River-Lake Coeur d'Alene Basin are like two ships passing in the night," added Osborn. "EPA's Superfund cleanup plan for the 1,500 square mile basin acknowledges that floods worsen heavy metal movement, public health risks, and clean-up costs but refuses to call on the Forest Service to restore the watersheds. The Forest Service refuses to acknowledge the 100 million tons of toxic waste sitting at the bottom of the unraveling forest watershed."

The award has been given twice before. Former-Senator Slade Gorton received the Dead Swan Award in 1999 for his efforts to suspend public law to benefit a Texas mining company trying to build an open pit cyanide leach gold mine in the mountains of eastern Washington. In 2002 Washington Governor Gary Locke and Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons received the award for agreeing to effectively transfer control of the Superfund cleanup from EPA to a commission created by the Idaho Legislature.

For background:
A Hundred Years of Logging in the National Forests
http://www.landscouncil.org/transitions/tr97n2/

Our Failing Forests, The Spokesman-Review
Nov. 21, 25, 28, 1993

Mark Rey
http://www.nativeforest.org/campaigns/public_lands/rey_5_30_02.htm

America's most damaged National Forest

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

1935 Coeur d'Alene National Forest, few clearcuts and almost no logging roads.
1935 Coeur d'Alene National Forest, few clearcuts and almost no logging roads.

These side-by-side photos show the extent of the damage to this National Forest over about 60 years. The Coeur d'Alene National Forest -- once a trophy hunting and fishing area -- is now severely damaged. In 2005 the nation will mark the hundredth anniversary of the transfer of the National Forests to the U.S. Forest Service.

1997 extensive clearcutting, logging roads.
1997 extensive clearcutting, logging roads.

Now the watershed is unraveling, and the geologic forces at work are Forest Service clearcuts and logging roads. The damaged forests can not hold onto the water, releasing floods. The Forest Service refuses to acknowledge the 100 million tons of toxic waste sitting at the bottom of the watershed. The resulting "toxic floods" carry lead and other heavy metals into Lake Coeur d'Alene and the Spokane River, polluting Washington State waters. (photo: Trygve Steen)

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8 Dead Swans

8 Dead swans found in just a single day (April 9, 1997) in one lead-polluted field of the Coeur d'Alene River's floodplain. 15,000 acres of wetlands are covered with 100 million tons of toxic material. Floods from the worst damaged National Forest -- the Coeur d'Alene -- carry lead into Lake Coeur d'Alene and the Spokane River. In a single day of the February 1996 flood, over 1 million pounds of lead flowed into Lake Coeur d'Alene. (photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

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