A controversial state timber sale near the Elwha River is moving forward, despite a legal challenge from a coalition of community groups and elected officials.
The groups say the 126 acres in the “Power Plant” timber sale are too close to the Elwha, and logging the mature forest there will compromise high-profile efforts to restore habitat for endangered salmon in the watershed, after dam removal.
They say it also threatens the sole source of drinking water for Port Angeles. They started a legal fight in June, alleging the state’s environmental review was inadequate. A Clallam County judge ruled the sale could continue and the state auctioned the claim to an Oregon company in July.
Elizabeth Dunne, a Port Angeles-based advocate with Earth Law Center, said community groups are now calling on Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz to cancel the sale.
“The commissioner can simply decide not to log this forest given the really massive outpouring of opposition by the city by a number of state elected officials,” Dunne said. “There's a lot of discretion as to where logging will occur, when it will occur and how it'll occur. And also, there's discretion just not to log -- and to generate revenue through other means.”
Dunne is part of a local coalition that is raising money for anElwha Forest Fund, which they say could help offset lost revenue from this sale that rural counties need. In the longer term, they’re part of a statewide coalition of groups that is asking the state to re-think its dependence on logging revenue from mature forests.
The state Department of Natural Resources went ahead with the auction in July and sold the claim to Murphy Company of Eugene, Oregon.
DNR spokesman Will Rubin told KNKX it's a very small area of the land along the Elwha.
“The piece of the sale that's within the watershed is less than 0.03% of the watershed. And trust lands as a whole in the watershed are less than 10% of the entire watershed,” he said.
He added that the state follows rigorous standards and protocols, laid out in its federal habitat conservation plan. This ensures compliance with the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act through regulation of things like the buffer zone between the logging claim and the Elwha River.
“We're not talking about a small little walkway, it's a 160-foot buffer zone between the timberland and the waterways,” he said.
The agency said it has no plans to cancel the sale unless a court orders it to do so.
The revenue raised from such sales helps fund schools and county services in rural parts of the state. The Murphy Company has until the end of next October to complete the logging work in its contract. They bid just over $650,000 for the logging rights.
But Dunne said the community’s lawsuit against the sale is “still very much alive,” as a Clallam County Superior Court judge has yet to review the full merits of the case.
