90 Arrested In Logging Protest

A total of 90 people were arrested protesting logging on the Siskiyou National Forest, authorities said Tuesday.

Protesters, including former U.S. Rep. Jim Jontz, D-Ind.; Earth First! co-founder Mike Roselle and National Audubon Society Vice President Brock Evans were arrested Monday while blocking a logging road leading out of the Sugarloaf timber sale.

About 300 people gathered to protest enactment by Congress last summer of the so-called salvage rider, a measure attached to a budget-cutting bill that suspended environmental laws through 1996 to expedite logging on national forests.

The Sugarloaf timber sale doesn’t fall under the salvage rider, but was exempted by Congress from court challenges in 1989 to provide timber while forests were locked up to protect the northern spotted owl.