Grand jury indicts five in UW firebombing

SEATTLE – A new grand jury indictment returned Thursday alleges that five people were behind the firebombing of the University of Washington’s horticulture center in May 2001.

Only one of the five, Briana Waters, of Berkeley, Calif., had previously been indicted in the case. The new indictment in U.S. District Court in Seattle also named Justin Solondz, 26, formerly of Jefferson County, Wash., and William C. Rodgers, of Prescott, Ariz., who committed suicide in jail after being charged with other acts of ecoterrorism. Two others referred to in the indictment were not identified.

The UW fire, one of the Northwest’s most notorious acts of ecoterrorism, was set early May 21, 2001. The horticulture center, rebuilt at a cost of around $7 million, had done work on fast-growing hybrid poplars in hopes of limiting the amount of natural forests that timber companies log.

The Earth Liberation Front, a shadowy collection of environmental activists, claimed responsibility five days after the fire, issuing a statement that said the poplars pose “an ecological nightmare” for the diversity of native forests.

The Justice Department has said a nine-year investigation into vandalism, arson and ecoterrorism uncovered a conspiracy involving at least two dozen people who held secret meetings around the West to plan their attacks.

In the summer of 2000, following one such meeting in Tucson, Ariz., Solondz destroyed five acres of canola grown by Monsanto Corp. in Dusty, Wash., the indictment said. The following March, he cut the bark on 800 hybrid poplar trees at three Oregon State University locations near Corvallis. Then he, Rodgers, Waters and two others destroyed the Center for Urban Horticulture, the indictment said.

Waters has pleaded not guilty.