Fish and Wildlife service let Weyerhaeuser edit "concern" letter they sent- to Weyerhaeuser itself!

Weyerhaeuser got to edit U.S. letter on logging, owls
Fish and Wildlife Service defends move

By ROBERT McCLURE
P-I REPORTER

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offered a Weyerhaeuser Co. executive the opportunity to edit a letter the agency was sending the timber company regarding "concerns" about Weyerhaeuser logging harming spotted owls.

And an internal Weyerhaeuser memo prepared for a meeting with a Bush administration official shows the company wants to do as little as possible to get environmentalists off its back while still cutting as much timber as possible.

Those two documents emerged at a four-day hearing this week before U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle in which the Seattle Audubon Society attacked Weyerhaeuser's alleged transgressions of the Endangered Species Act.

Audubon, calling government regulators too cozy with the timber industry, is asking the judge to halt Weyerhaeuser's logging near spotted owls. It also is asking her to restrict Washington Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland's ability to approve logging on about 50,000 forested acres near where spotted owls have been seen. The land belongs to Weyerhaeuser and others.

Unless the judge steps in to halt the logging before the case can go to a full trial in several years, Audubon attorney John Arum predicted, "The state will issue scores of permits ... and thousands of acres of this habitat will be destroyed."

more:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/321051_weyco23.html

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