March 6, 2001 

ELF Says It Spiked Trees In Timber Sale 

By LANCE ROBERTSON The Register-Guard 

A shadowy environmental group known for dozens of arsons and other acts of destruction across the country says it has spiked trees slated for logging near Hardesty Mountain southeast of Eugene. 

The Earth Liberation Front, in a statement sent to The Register-Guard, said it also pulled up survey stakes along a road being built to haul logs out of the Umpqua National Forest's Judie Timber Sale. 

"All responsibility for worker safety now lies with the owner of the sale," which is Eugene-based Seneca Jones Timber Co., the statement said. 

The group said the logging threatens the environment and the drinking water of Cottage Grove, which gets its water from the area where the timber sale is located. 

A Umpqua National Forest spokeswoman said federal officials haven't been able to confirm that trees were spiked. The area is covered with snow, and a Forest Service crew has not been able to check trees, said spokeswoman Cheryl Walters. 

Tree spiking is a decades-old tactic that involves pounding nails or spikes into trees in an attempt to keep them from being cut down. Spikes can damage loggers' chain saws or the large saws at wood-products mills, endangering the safety of workers. 

"Safety is our first concern," Walters said. 

A spokesman for Seneca could not be reached Monday afternoon. The company has not begun logging the 40 acres of national forest, but is building a small spur road to the logging site. Walters said if true, it would be the first documented case of tree-spiking on the Umpqua National Forest. Trees were spiked in the late 1980s on the Willamette National Forest side of Hardesty. 

Conservationists have been trying to protect the area for decades. In 1998, most of the Judie Timber Sale was canceled after conservationists and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., complained that most of the logging would occur in or near a roadless area. 

Walters said all but 40 acres of the logging was canceled. About 1.3 million board feet of timber still would be cut. 

The ELF has claimed responsibility for about $40 million worth of damage, most of it by torching buildings and homes from Oregon to New York. It also has taken responsibility for burning a ski resort in Vail, Colo. 

The group last took responsibility for burning a timber company office near Medford on Jan. 2. 

In October 1996, the Oakridge Ranger Station was burned to the ground, but ELF never claimed responsibility. Recently, ELF has claimed responsibility for burning homes under construction on Long Island, N.Y., near Bloomington, Ind., and in Arizona and California.