In a surprise May 19 ruling, a federal appeals court
sent a land exchange in western Washington back to the drawing
board. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the
controversial Huckleberry Land Exchange needed more study and told
company loggers to stop cutting the traded land. The exchange gave
Weyerhaeuser Co. 4,300 acres of public land on Huckleberry Mountain
in return for 30,000 acres of company holdings (HCN,
3/29/99).
The Pilchuck Audubon Society,
Huckleberry Mountain Protection Society, and the Muckleshoot Indian
tribe had sued to halt the exchange, arguing that the Forest
Service’s analysis was one-sided. Their suit was denied late in
1997, and the trade was completed last spring, before an appeal
could be heard.
Later that year, independent
appraisers found that the public had lost at least $10 million on
the trade because the exchange’s values had been skewed in favor of
Weyerhaeuser. Janine Blaeloch, director of the Western Land
Exchange Project, says that 90 percent of the lands the public got
were either cut over or too high and rocky to grow trees. The
appeals court has now frozen the trade until the Forest Service
studies the ecological effect of giving one of western Washington’s
last native forests to a timber company, presents a wider range of
alternatives and acknowledges the combined impact of this trade and
the nearby Interstate 90 exchange with Plum Creek Timber
Company.
The ruling may be the first time a land
swap has ever been suspended after the deeds had changed hands.
Blaeloch thinks the decision will substantially affect the NEPA
process for future land exchanges. “This may be the happiest day of
my life,” she said.
*Lynne Bama
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Court nixes land exchange.
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