November 01, 1998

Congress' land swap will be first of many, conservationists fear

by John Hughes

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Congress' approval of a huge land swap in Washington state

will prompt more businesses to seek similar deals on Capitol Hill,
environmentalists say.

The $520 billion budget bill Congress passed in its final two days in session
last month included the land trade valued at $160 million to $200 million.

Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber, which sought the deal, will swap more than
62,000 acres of its land in west-central Washington for 16,500 acres of
national-forest land - although it will be up to nine months before both sides
exchange the deeds.

The final terms of the deal, negotiated privately in the final weeks of the session,
had the blessing of Washington's two senators, some environmental groups and
even the Clinton administration, which had previously opposed routing the trade
through Congress.

Plum Creek officials said they wanted Congress to authorize the deal so that
they could avoid lengthy appeals and lawsuits from environmental groups that
could delay the trade for months or years.

Such appeals are allowed in the administrative process federal officials use to
negotiate dozens of land trades with private interests each year.

Public can file appeals

The process - while not perfect - allows the public to participate at public
hearings and file appeals if they disapprove of a land exchange, said Janine
Blaeloch, director of the Western Land Exchange Project, a Seattle-based
environmental group that tracks land swaps.

Blaeloch's group, for instance, filed a lawsuit last month to stop a 60,000-acre
trade in Oregon between the government and timber giant Crown Pacific.

The litigation will delay the trade at least until next year - and Crown Pacific has
already been trying to make the trade for more than three years.

Blaeloch said more companies may follow Plum Creek's lead and seek a
shortcut in Congress, where she said Republican leaders have a poor record of
giving environmentalists access.

Mitch Friedman, director of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance in Bellingham,

said he's not sure whether the Plum Creek trade was good for taxpayers
because key lawmakers cut the deal in private.

But William Brown, a Plum Creek vice president, said he doubts the Plum
Creek deal will bring other companies rushing to Capitol Hill. Plum Creek, he
said, has also been using the administrative process, which has been critical for
shaping the deal and gaining support for the trade from the U.S. Forest Service.

Avoiding congressional role

Brown said the company has six other, smaller trades under way in Idaho and
Montana and plans no involvement from Congress for any of them.

He said the company went to Capitol Hill this year only when it was clear its
two-year deadline for completing the trade administratively wouldn't be met.

Even then, the deal seemed doomed several times.

"I don't think anyone would look at what we've done and say it was an easy
process," Brown said.

Murray given credit

Raines said the Plum Creek legislation was a bargain. He credits Sen. Patty
Murray, D-Wash., for helping to sweeten the deal by adding a 15,000-acre
wilderness study area and establishing a 5,500-acre special management area.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., downplayed his own role in the trade, saying it
was the product of talks involving environmental groups, federal officials and
Plum Creek.

"I'm simply blessing their agreement," he said before Congress adjourned. "We
had no part in the substance of the agreement."

Federal law allows the federal government to trade public land for private land if
the deal is in the public interest.

The Forest Service annually makes about 100 land deals involving 170,000
acres of land, often in an effort to end "checkerboard" patterns of public and
private lands and make public lands easier to manage.

But environmentalists often object to the deals, saying the government is giving
away too many old-growth forests in return for land that has been shaved of
trees.