News from

Michigan Sierra Club

109 East Grand River, Lansing, MI 48906

 For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 5, 2001

SIERRA CLUB LAWSUIT SEEKS TO BLOCK FOREST SERVICE

ASPEN TIMBER SALES IN MI, MN, AND WI

Effects on forests, deer population must be assessed, group says.

The Sierra Club has filed a lawsuit against the US Forest Service, Eastern Region, seeking to block the logging of aspen on the seven National Forests in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.* Forest Service decisions promoting aspen clearcutting are holding back restoration of native white pine forests in the region and maintaining white-tailed deer numbers at levels that cause property damage and environmental impacts, according to the Sierra Club. The lawsuit asks the court to direct the agency to block additional aspen timber sales on Forest Service lands until they complete a regional analysis of environmental impacts from this management direction.

The Ottawa Aspen Sale Lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Mackinac (Michigan) Chapter of the Sierra Club in the US District Court - Western District of Michigan December 4th and assigned to Judge David McKeague. The suit springs from a single timber sale on the Ottawa National Forest, but challenges the Forest Service management of aspen across the three state region. The lawsuit was filed by Leigh Haynie, an environmental attorney in Minnesota and includes two individual plaintiffs, Marvin Roberson, Forest Policy Specialist, and Anne Woiwode, Director, of the Sierra Club Mackinac Chapter.

"Forest Service timber management is drastically altering the forests of the Upper Great Lakes from their natural condition, without consideration of the effects on the natural environment, nor whether these changes can be sustained," according to Roberson. Roberson notes that aspen forests, managed primarily through clearcutting, are being maintained at 10 times their natural levels on Forest Service lands in the three states, despite evidence of widespread environmental consequences.

Aspen clearcutting is preventing the reestablishment of white pine and northern hardwoods forests that were lost during the lumber baron era at the turn of the last century, according to Sierra Club. In addition, over cutting of aspen contributes to a massive overabundance of deer habitat, contributing to 65,000 deer/car collisions per year in Michigan alone, escalated threats of bovine tuberculosis exposure for livestock, and extensive damage to rare plant species as well as agricultural crops.

To date the Forest Service has refused Michigan Sierra Club’s repeated requests to initiate a region wide analysis of the environmental effects of their aspen management activities. The federal agency has never considered the cumulative effect of their policy of holding back forest succession on a massive scale across the upper Great Lakes states, although other environmental issues have received region-wide analysis.

"The Forest Service is determining the future of our region’s National Forests by promoting excessive aspen clearcutting without considering the tradeoffs," said Anne Woiwode. "These seven National Forests belong to all of us, and the managers must be held accountable to the laws designed to protect these lands and our nation’s interests in them."

-end-

 *The National Forests affected are the Huron-Manistee, Hiawatha, and Ottawa in Michigan, the Chequamegon and Nicolet in Wisconsin, and the Superior and Chippewa in Minnesota.