Logging Opponents Waiting For A Fight But Heavy Rains Delaying Road Building In Cove-Mallard

Activists have built barriers and dug trenches to halt logging in the Cove-Mallard area of North Idaho, but no bulldozers are on hand to stop them.

Members of Earth First! and a handful of other factions have gathered for another summer to stop road building and logging in one of the largest roadless areas left in the lower 48 states.

“They are not bothering anybody because nothing’s going on out there right now,” Red River Ranger Ed Wood said. The activity about 10 miles southeast of the ranger station, has been largely ignored.

The Highland Enterprises of Grangeville, which is building the Jack Creek road for Shearer Lumber Co. of Elk City, pulled out last week because of “real frog-strangling rains,” Wood said.

The company does not plan to resume road building until at least next week. It has built about 9,000 feet of the five-mile road into the Jack timber sale.

Wood said that although the barriers appear impressive, it should not take the road builders more than a few minutes to repair the damage.

Whether arrests will be made has not been determined.

Wood said the Forest Service is monitoring the conclave and will take the appropriate action at the right time. Dozens of people have been prosecuted over the years, mostly for chaining themselves to vehicles.

Although the rendezvous had been billed as attracting up to 1,000 people, organizer Jack Kreilick put the figure closer to 250.

“There’s a little bit of everything here,” he said of the various workshops and lectures.

Moonburst, 29, who chained his arm to a gate at the Jack Creek road, is from Madison, Wis.

“I’m here to stop clear-cutting,” he said, hoping events develop so he does not have to stay chained to the gate for a week.

“It kind of cuts off your circulation,” he said.

Wood said participants over the summers seemed to be counterculture types but “some of them are driving Volvos and Explorers and wearing Eddie Bauer clothes. It seems like there’s a lot of energy going to waste.”