The WildLaw Letter

For Members and Friends July 2000

WildLaw is growing rapidly. Without making major increases in our budget, we have rearranged our funding and stretched our dollars to go even further and to do even more for the communities and environment of the South.

This summer, WildLaw is opening three new offices and hiring a new staff attorney at our North Carolina Office.

Virginias Office

In July, WildLaw hired Tammy Belinsky to open our new Virginias Office. With the great amount of work WildLaw and its clients have been doing on the National Forests of Virginia and on mining and forestry issues in Virginia and West Virginia, we decided it was time to have a permanent presence there and up the level of environmental legal help in those states. Like all of the country, the central Appalachians have a far greater need for environmental legal assistance than can be met with the current resources in the area. Since we have so many client organizations already in the area, we felt it was time to expand our work there. WildLaw's mission is to protect as much of the wild and to help as many communities as possible.

A 1999 graduate of the University of Richmond School of Law, Tammy was a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley prior to her association with WildLaw. Before attending law school, Tammy was a wastewater-discharge-permit engineer for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the final position in her career as an environmental regulator. Tammy currently serves on the Board of Appalachian Voices and on the Steering Committee of Vital Signs, a regional sustainable development initiative in Roanoke and New River Valleys of Virginia.

Florida Office:

Starting in August, Brett Paben will head up our new Florida office. A recent graduate of the University of Oregon School of Law's environmental program, Brett will work on National Forests, endangered species, wildlands protection and coastal zone protection issues.

New Orleans Office:

Danny Daniels, one of our two staff attorneys in our Southern Appalachian Office in North Carolina is moving to the Big Easy due to his wife getting a job there. Danny will open an office for us there and work on National Forest issues in Louisiana and southern Mississippi and water quality issues in the lower Mississippi Basin, including the Dead Zone problem in the Gulf of Mexico.

New Hire in North Carolina:

Our North Carolina staff attorney Kellam Warren is leaving WildLaw at the end of July to pursue a career in private practice in Memphis. To replace him, we have hired Steve Novak, an attorney from Brevard, North Carolina. Steve has worked with us before on individual cases and is very familiar with our clients' issues due to his being a member and volunteer for many environmental groups in the state.

WildLaw and a broad array of other environmental, business and governmental interests is working on getting National Monument designation for major portions of the Bankhead and Talladega National Forests. The proposal would protect 140,000 acres in the Bankhead and 120,000 acres in the Talladega from industrial logging and mining. The monuments would highlight the state's crown jewels of scenic beauty and be a major tourist draw.

An article in The Birmingham News quoted WildLaw Executive Director Ray Vaughan in a good summary of why we need these monuments:

"If the president came in here and said, 'This is a national monument. This is a national treasure,' people would notice," said Ray Vaughan, the Montgomery environmental lawyer who drafted the proposal.

"When you consider all the ecological and historical and cultural resources that are in there, these are clearly Alabama's most scenic and valuable places," said Vaughan. "When you lump all these together, you get something unique in the nation."

Our client, Lamar Marshall of Wild Alabama has received numerous death threats related to his working on the monument proposals. Things like "Kill Lamar" have been spray painted on walls of National Forest bathrooms. WildLaw is providing legal advice to Lamar on dealing with these threats and the group that is spearheading opposition to the monument proposals. We provide legal research that rebuts the lies and misinformation put out by some opponents of the monuments, and we wrote the legal sections of the draft proclamations for consideration by the President.

Great Poll on the Monuments and Forest Protection in general:

On July 14, 2000, the "Our Green is Our Gold" Alabama National Monument Campaign, of which WildLaw is the legal arm, released a poll of 400 Alabama registered voters. The poll showed that the overwhelming majority of Alabamians support protection of National Forests.

When asked if they favor or oppose the President declaring parts of the Bankhead and Talladega National Forests as National Monuments, 78% of the respondents said they favor it, 12% were opposed and 10% were not sure. Asked if they feel that Alabama's elected officials are doing enough to preserve our public lands, 55% said elected officials were not doing enough, 22% said they were doing enough and 23% said they were not sure.

In questions about commercial logging and mining in the National Forests in general, the response was that 74% opposed logging, 13% favored logging and 13% were not sure. 76% of Democrats and 74% of Republicans opposed National Forest logging. For mining, 80% opposed mining on National Forests, 10% favored it, and 10% were not sure. 83% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans opposed public lands mining.

The poll was conducted by Southern Research, Inc. of Montgomery and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5%.

How you can help:

Write a letter to President Clinton asking him to designate these portions of the Bankhead and Talladega as National Monuments. Tell him why these forests are so special to you for their unique scenic, biological, cultural and recreational values. Please send a copy of your letter to Dinah Bear at the Council for Environmental Quality.

The Honorable Bill Clinton, President of the United States, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20500. Ms. Dinah Bear, General Counsel, Council on Environmental Quality, 722 Jackson Place, NW, Washington, DC 20503.

On July 13, 2000, WildLaw and its clients Wild Alabama and Wild South participated in the filing of a major lawsuit to protect all the National Forests of the Southern United States. The case, Sierra Club, et al. v. Estill, et al., was filed in federal district court in Atlanta, Georgia against the Forest Service and the Regional Forester Elizabeth Estill. The Sierra Club is the lead plaintiff in the case, and the other plaintiffs in addition to the Sierra Club, Wild Alabama and Wild South are Rabun County Coalition to Save the Forest, Friends of Georgia, Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, Cherokee Forest Voices, and Earth Island Institute. Eric Huber of Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund is lead counsel, and WildLaw attorneys are assisting in the case on logging projects from National Forests in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Also working on the case for Tennessee timber sales is the Southern Environmental Law Center. Don Stack of Stack and Associates in Atlanta is working as local counsel.

More information about the case is below in the Sierra Club press release on the case:

SIERRA CLUB MEDIA RELEASE July 13, 2000

Contacts: Eric Huber - EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund (504)522-1394; René Voss - Sierra Club (202)547-9124; Larry Winslett - Sierra Club - Georgia (706)864-2661; Allen Mattison - Sierra Club - Media (202)675-7903

SIERRA CLUB FILES SUIT TO PROTECT SOUTHERN WILDLIFE

Rare Birds, Fish in Southern US Harmed by National Forest Logging

Atlanta (GA) -- Sierra Club and EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund filed suit in Federal Court today to stop logging in National Forests from wiping out rare birds and fish in the Southeastern U.S. Despite a previous court ruling that the U.S. Forest Service must examine the ways logging will harm endangered species, the Forest Service has continued to allow logging that destroys sensitive animal habitat. This suit aims to halt that destruction.

"We again have to seek relief from a federal court to halt destructive logging because the US Forest Service refuses to comply with their duty to protect rare and sensitive species in our southern National Forests," said René Voss of the Sierra Club Board of Directors. "Many declining bird species such as wood warblers and various darters and other fish species continue to decline from the logging of our national forests in the South."

In February of 1999, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed with Sierra Club that the law requires the US Forest Service to survey and monitor rare wildlife species in order to gauge whether they remain viable or can persist and not become endangered. The court concluded that the US Forest Service did not maintain adequate data to make these scientific judgments and ordered the Forest Service to stop logging in Georgia's Chattahoochee and Oconee National Forests. That ruling also affected logging activities in Alabama and Florida.

"Many of our rare species are in decline from clearcutting on our National Forests," said attorney Eric Huber with EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund. "Logging and associated road-building destroys nesting birds, wildlife habitat, causes severe soil erosion which in turn destroys fish habitat."

"Despite the clear mandate of the Court, the Forest Service continues to approve destructive logging and road-building in the national forests without first obtaining the scientific information necessary to protect the wildlife in these areas. To make matters worse, instead of complying with the Court ruling, the Forest Service is attempting to rewrite their plans and rules to get out from under the requirements to do these surveys," said Eric Huber. "This suit will enforce the court of appeals decision and apply it throughout the Southern Region."

Sierra Club will seek to suspend logging where the Forest Service does not have the required data until it complies with the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.

The Southern Region of the US Forest Service includes 31 National Forests in Georgia (Chattahoochee and Oconee), Alabama (Talladega, Bankhead, and Conecuh), Louisiana (Kisatchie), Tennessee (Cherokee), Arkansas (Ouachita, Ozark, and St. Francis), Mississippi (DeSoto, Homochitto, Bienville, Tombigbee, and Holly Springs), Texas (Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Sabine, and Angelina), Florida (Ocala, Osceola, and Apalachicola), North Carolina (Nantahala, Pisgah, Uwharrie, and Croatan), South Carolina (Sumter and Francis Marion), Virginia (Jefferson and George Washington), and Kentucky (Daniel Boone).

Joining Sierra Club as plaintiffs are the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute, Wild South, Wild Alabama, Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, Friends of Georgia, Rabun County Coalition to Save the Forests, and Cherokee Forest Voices.

Joining EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund, representing these Clients are WildLaw (for Wild South and Wild Alabama), Stack and Associates and Southern Environmental Law Center (for Cherokee Forest Voices).

The WildLaw Northwoods office, on behalf of Northwoods Wilderness Recovery and Heartwood, filed suit on July 28, in the Western District Court of Michigan. The Rapid River/Manistique District on the Hiawatha National Forest proposes to even-age cut 66 acres of jack pine and thin 220 acres of red pine within the Wild and Scenic River corridor for the Indian River. The Indian River Decision violates the Wild and Scenic River Act by authorizing logging and other ground disturbing activity within the 1/4-mile corridor of the Indian River.

In the face of an appeal by WildLaw, the Forest Service has withdrawn its Wiggins logging project on the Oakmulgee Division of the Talladega National Forest in central Alabama. Filed on behalf of Wild Alabama and Wild South, the appeal contested the Forest Service's continuing devotion to a 15-year old LRMP that mandates short-rotation pine plantations. The only good thing about this project is that they plan Longleaf Pine Plantations instead of Loblolly Pine Plantations, but what is bad is that the Forest Service will cut many hardwoods and refused to consider hardwood restoration, a very real need for the Oakmulgee. They also refused to consider the cumulative impacts of this logging project with other projects recently done in the area and those planned for the future.

In June, WildLaw negotiated a successful resolution to a 103-day tree-sit in Baldwin County, Alabama. Ron Horton had been sitting in a 500+ year old Live Oak tree on his property in order to prevent some 65% of its crown from being cut by Alabama Power Company. The Power Company had apparent plans to cut the vast majority of the tree to give clearance to its power lines that were near the tree. Ron and Sharon Horton, who were married under the oak last March, sought to protect the beautiful giant from that mutilation that could have well killed it.

Alabama Power sued Ron to get a court order removing him from the tree. Unfortunately, Alabama law gives utilities virtually unlimited powers to cut and kill anything they want to "protect" their power lines. While the Power Company refused to move the power lines, they did agree to limit trimming to no more than five feet from the lines. With that limitation, only one branch of the tree could be impacted, and the Power Company agreed to try to string its lines so as to try to avoid that one branch as well.

Ron Horton is a former biology professor turned artist. His distinctive work focuses on wildlife and folk art through realism and impressionistic oil paintings. To learn more about Ron and Sharon's work, contact them at LiveOakStudios-Gardens@bellsouth.net.

Always trying to make the most of technological tools to maximize our work, WildLaw has partnered with GivingCapital.com so that people can conveniently donate to WildLaw online with credit cards. Starting Sept. 15, our first campaign will open on the Web. Those members and friends with e-mail will be notified, and we hope that you will tell all your friends on the Internet about this chance to donate.

WildLaw Main Office: 300-B Water Street, Suite 214, Montgomery, Alabama 36104. 334/265-6529, 334/265-6511 (fax). E-mail: WildLaw@aol.com for Ray Vaughan and WildLaw2@aol.com for Aimee Smith.

WildLaw North Woods Office: 12005 41st Ave. N., #201, Plymouth, Minnesota 55441. 612/551-9979 (office & fax). E-mail: WildLawNW@aol.com for Leigh Haynie.

WildLaw Southern Appalachian Office: 20 Battery Park Avenue, Suite 405 in Asheville, North Carolina 28801. 828/232-1157, 828/232-1162 (fax). E-mail: WildLawNC@aol.com for Steve Novak and WildLawNC2@aol.com for Danny Daniels.

WildLaw Virginias Office: 9544 Pine Forest Road, Copper Hill, VA 24079. 540/929-4222. WildLawVA@rev.net.

Web site for all offices: www.wildlaw.org.

300-B Water Street, Suite 214

Montgomery, Alabama 36104