National Timber Ban May Cost Taxpayers More than $4 Million

PHOENIX _ Taxpayers will have to pay $4 million to $5 million to the timber industry if environmentalists halt the logging of thousands of old growth ponderosa pines near Greer, the U.S. Forest Service says.

The money would go to Precision Pine Timber Inc., which has a contract to cut about 5,000 acres that environmentalists argue is irreplaceable for hiking, camping and bird-watching.

John Bedell, supervisor of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, testified Tuesday that if a federal judge blocks the sale, the government is required to pay Precision Pine for breach of contract.

That's on top of $1.2 million taxpayers may pay the company as a result of a timber sale reduction caused by designation of the Mexican spotted owl as an endangered species, Bedell said.

His warning came during a court hearing to determine whether the Forest Service failed to complete an environmental analysis before it approved the sale, the largest pending in Arizona and New Mexico.

Environmentalists want U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt to issue a preliminary injunction halting the cutting of trees near a tributary of the Little Colorado River in eastern Arizona.

Rosenblatt took the matter under consideration, noting that weather conditions prevent the company from logging in the area until June.

"There's not going to be any logging up there," he said. "The Forest Service isn't going to let anyone in there to do cutting."

Environmental lawyer Jay Tuchton said that if taxpayers have to pay off Precision Pine because the timber sale is canceled, the firm could use the funds to help employees laid off from closures at its timber mills in Snowflake and Eager.

"The Forest Service has screwed up" in skirting environmental laws when it approved the sale, Tuchton said.

The Forest Service, though, said an environmental review of the area was conducted in 1980, when the timber was first offered for sale.

Lewis Tenney, vice president of Precision Pine, said the company needs the timber sale to keep its Eager mill open.

Last week, the company shut down a mill in Snowflake, blaming controversy over the old growth timber sale near Greer. Thirty employees lost their jobs.

Even if the Forest Service pays the company for not cutting the Apache-Sitgreaves, he said, it will not be able to give its employees severance pay. He said that without the sale, the company may not even continue to exist.

"It has a major impact on us," he said.

The controversy has attracted the attention of state Republican legislative leaders, who point to the conservationists' lawsuit as an example of how "environmental radicals" are destroying the state's rural economies.

"We're at a point where people are drawing a line in the sand and saying enough is enough," House Speaker Mark Killian said recently.

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