Activist Held For Blocking Loggers’ Access To Timber Sale

An environmental activist was arrested Monday for blocking access into the Nez Perce National Forest’s Noble timber sale in the Cove-Mallard area, where logging opponents have protested for years.

Johnathon L. Crowell, 22, of Boise, was arrested after attaching himself to a gate into the sale area with a bicycle lock, preventing logging crews and four timber-hauling trucks from entering the area for three hours.

The Noble sale is one of nine planned for the Cove-Mallard area, which logging opponents contend provides a corridor of critical wildlife habitat between the Gospel Hump and Frank Church-River of No Return wilderness areas.

“The Noble timber sale is dumping sediment into Little Mallard Creek, which is spawning and rearing habitat for steelhead,” Crowell said in a statement issued by the CoveMallard Coalition and the Native Forest Network. “With the steelhead newly listed under the Endangered Species Act, the Forest Service is not fulfilling its responsibilities to protect them.”

About 20 protesters looked on as Crowell’s lock was cut and he was arrested by Forest Service and Idaho County sheriff’s officers. The Forest Service said Crowell would be taken to Boise for arraignment in federal court on charges of blocking a road and interfering with a forest officer.

This is the sixth year of protests in the Cove-Mallard area. More than 200 related arrests have been made.