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- - Embargoed
until Tuesday, Dec. 28th For
additional information 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. . Sierra
Club John
Osborn, MD Jeff
Holmes
Background A
Hundred Years of Logging in
the National
Forests Toxic
Floods Of The Coeur d'Alene,
An Illustrated webpage and
poster to down
load - - "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: Our
Failing Forests, The Spokesman-Review Mark
Rey (Click
on photo to enlarge.)
- 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) - - -
News
Release
December
28, 2004
John
Osborn,
Sierra Club 509.939-1290
john@waterplanet.ws
Jeff
Holmes,
Sierra Club 509-868-3337
jeff.holmes@sierraclub.org
Dead Swan Award on
Mark
Rey:
former timber lobbyist
and Undersecretary of
Agriculture
former timber
lobbyist
and
Undersecretary
of
Agriculture
Upper
Columbia River
Group
P.O. Box 413
Spokane, WA 99210
(509) 456-3376
Contacts
Conservation Chair
Sierra Club
Upper Columbia
River Group
509.939-1290
john@waterplanet.ws
Hunter and Fishing
Program Coordinator
509-868-3337
jeff.holmes@sierraclub.org
Links
Mark
Rey
Coeur
d'Alene
Superfund
Cleanup,
Background
Sierra Club
Upper
Columbia River
Group
Northern
Rockies
Chapter
Sierra
Club
A
Hundred Years of Logging in the National
Forests
http://www.landscouncil.org/transitions/tr97n2/
Nov. 21, 25, 28, 1993
http://www.nativeforest.org/campaigns/public_lands/rey_5_30_02.htmAmerica's
most damaged National Forest