Group Protests Gorton Push On Salvage Logging After Aide Invites Trio Into Office, Man Chains Himself To Chair

A man protesting legislation to free salvage logging from environmental controls chained himself to a chair in Sen. Slade Gorton’s office Tuesday but left after a meeting with a senator’s aide was arranged.

Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project demonstrators sought in vain to get staffers in the Federal Building office to contact Gorton, R-Wash., or one of his top aides in Washington, D.C.

“Well, uh, it’s tough,” said Dan Brady, administrative manager and environmental affairs expert in Gorton’s state office. “He’s in the product liability hearings.”

Gorton is sponsoring legislation to exempt salvage logging in fire-ravaged and insectdamaged forests from environmental review.

“Throughout history, from the cedars of Lebanon when the Romans came through … we have been changing our climate as we chop down our forests,” said Suzanne Pardee, project director.

“The taxpayer is paying for the destruction of their problem forests,” she said.

Asante Riverwind, coordinator of the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project in Oregon, brought a photo display of salvage logging he said was done without regard to endangered species, ecosystem renewal or water quality in affected streams.

Pardee, Riverwind and Mike Howell, project board president, said the protest was intended partly to persuade President Clinton to veto the bill.

“He said he might veto it, but we don’t know yet,” Pardee said.

Nearly a dozen demonstrators who tried to enter Gorton’s state office were barred by Federal Protective Services officers, who limited entry to three plus reporters.

The protesters chose Pardee, Riverwind and Howell, who asked Brady to watch a video presentation of 20 to 25 minutes on logging in an area inhabited by the rare northern spotted owl and damaged by an arson fire in the Warner Creek drainage about 60 miles east of Eugene, Ore.

Brady initially agreed, although he said he had to leave for an appointment in Olympia in about 15 minutes, and ushered the group into Gorton’s office.

When Howell sat down and fastened his leg to the arm of Gorton’s chair, however, Brady got angry, ordered reporters out of the room without explanation and left the office soon afterward.

A couple more FPS officers visited the room, and Howell unlocked himself voluntarily and left after Gorton’s state director, Veda Jellen, promised that Brady and possibly one of the senator’s aides from Washington, D.C., would meet with project leaders Thursday afternoon.

She would not say whether the meeting would be open to reporters, as the protesters had asked, saying that decision was up to Gorton’s press secretary.