October 19, 1999

Plum Creek sues to keep I-90 land swap rolling

By HUNTER T. GEORGE
Associated Press

OLYMPIA -- Plum Creek Timber Co. is asking a federal judge to quickly endorse an exchange of Interstate-90 area land with the federal government, saying opposition from some environmentalists is causing costly delays.

The Seattle-based timber company filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Spokane on Thursday, the same day it learned that foes had lost an administrative appeal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Plum Creek explained the need for the lawsuit this way: Critics of the land swap almost certainly would have sued to block the deal, so the court might as well rule on its legality now.

But foes, who learned of the lawsuit Friday and held a conference call Saturday to discuss their options, said Plum Creek may be trying to keep them from seeking an injunction that would block the government from turning over land in three national forests in Washington.

"Plum Creek has tried every way they could over the last three years to shut the public out of the process. This is the final desperate measure they're taking to keep us out of the court," Janine Blaeloch of the Seattle-based Western Land Exchange Project said in a telephone interview.

"They really want to get at the timber in the national forests."

The swap is designed to erase the 1800s-era "checkerboard" pattern of public and private lands that makes individual parcels difficult to manage along the I-90 corridor over the Cascade Range.

Under the deal, Plum Creek would give up to 46,000 acres along Interstate 90 in west-central Washington in return for 14,800 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in the Wenatchee, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Gifford Pinchot national forests.

The agreement is backed by some environmental groups, including the Mountaineers and the Seattle chapter of the Sierra Club.

But other environmental groups oppose the inclusion of a parcel on Watch Mountain near Randle, where activists have been camping out high in fir trees for several months. They also oppose giving Plum Creek lands in the Green River Valley that may be home to the endangered marbled murrelet, and the 2,800-acre Fossil Creek parcel near Mount St. Helens.

Foes have been hampered by Congress, which removed some administrative obstacles in 1998 by passing a law ordering the Forest Service to make the swap.

On Thursday, a deputy regional forester with the Forest Service denied the opponents' administrative appeal, saying the agency has no authority to change the deal since it was authorized by law.

In its lawsuit filed the same day, Plum Creek noted that foes have attacked the law as a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution. Since the only place to make such a challenge is the federal courts, it was a matter of time before environmentalists would file a lawsuit of their own, the company said.

The law says Plum Creek may not log the land it proposes to swap, or apply for permits to log the land it expects to receive, while the deal is pending. So waiting for the environmentalists to sue would prove costly, Plum Creek said.

The company asked the court to declare that the 1998 law does not violate the Constitution or other federal statutes or regulations. Plum Creek also seeks confirmation that the Forest Service has no authorization to change the lands to be exchanged or to impose conditions on the swap.

Foes argued in their administrative appeal that the Forest Service's decision to implement the swap violates numerous federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.

They accused Plum Creek of seeking to avoid public scrutiny of the deal, first by lobbying for the law in lieu of following administrative procedures, and now by its lawsuit.

"It's a preemptive strike to keep us from going to court and possibly getting an injunction while a court looks at the legality of the (law)," Blaeloch said.

Plum Creek officials and the attorney who filed the firm's lawsuit, J. Thomas Richardson of Seattle, could not be reached for comment Saturday.