Corps May Face Suit on Chip Mill Permit

[Arthur Clark <aclark@essential.org>]

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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT
- NATURAL RESOURCES POLICY ADVISORY
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TAP-RESOURCES
August 19, 1997



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 			August 14, 1997

US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS FACES ANOTHER POTENTIAL LAWSUIT
OVER CHIP MILL PERMIT  

  
ASHEVILLE, August 14 (DA) -- Eight citizens' groups filed 
a 60 Day Notice of Intent to Sue the US Army Corps of 
Engineers Wednesday for violating the Endangered Species 
Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental 
Policy Act when permitting Willamette Industries' chip 
mill in Union Mills, North Carolina.  Among other 
violations, the Corps failed to consider the off-site, 
secondary and cumulative logging impacts of the chip mill.  

The 60 day Notice of Intent to Sue is the latest step in a 
two year struggle by local and regional citizen's groups 
to stop the construction of the Willamette chip mill.  The 
continuous failure on the part of the Corps to look at the 
off-site impacts of chip mills has been the source of 
citizen frustration across the southeast.  The Corps is 
already a defendant in a lawsuit filed by environmental 
groups last year for its failure to assess the off-site, 
secondary and cumulative logging impacts when permitting a 
chip mill and 12 whole log loading facilities on the 
Tennessee River.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service expressed serious concerns 
about the potential off-site logging impacts the Willamette 
chip mill would have on threatened and endangered species,
wildlife habitat, water quality, and "other aspects of the 
human environment" and formally recommended that the Corps 
deny the permit pending an  an assessment of the off-site 
logging impacts.

"The Corps violated the Endangered Species Act when it 
disregarded the concerns of the US Fish and Wildlife 
Service in issuing this permit and we plan to hold the 
Corps accountable to the law.  Citizens throughout the 
South are tired of chip mill permits being issued without
consideration of the massive clearcutting that results from 
their operation," said Lynne Faltraco, of the Concerned 
Citizens of Rutherford County.

Since 1985, approximately 108 chip mills have been permitted 
in the Southeast without consideration of the off-site, 
secondary and cumulative environmental impacts.  An estimated
1.2 million acres of forests are logged annually as a result 
of the current operation of at least 140 chip mills in the 
region.  Since April, citizens across the Southeast have been 
pushing for a Region-wide study of the impacts of chip mills.

"If the U.S. Army Corps and the rest of the wood chipping 
industry didn't see this law suit coming, they should look 
around at all the public discontent and frustration. People 
all over the Southeast are just fed up with chip mills and 
clearcuts," said Cielo Myczack, a plaintiff in the current suit 
against the Corps and Campaign Coordinator for the Dogwood 
Alliance.

Groups signing the 60 Day Notice of Intent to Sue are The 
Concerned Citizens of Rutherford County, The Western North 
Carolina Alliance, The Dogwood Alliance, The Native Forest
Network, The Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, The 
Southeast Center for Ecological Awareness, and The Broadened 
Horizons Riverkeeper Project and Heartwood.  


CONTACT: 

Ray Vaughan, Attorney, Wildlaw, 334-265-6529

Lynne Faltraco, Chair, Concerned Citizens of Rutherford 
County, 704-287-4429

Cielo Myczack, Campaign Coordinator, Dogwood Alliance,
423-267-3977


                          ###


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