Time-out on roadless logging can't stop Utah sale
May 29th, 2009 @ 7:46am

KSL.com

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A wilderness coalition says the Obama administration's one-year moratorium on logging in roadless areas of national forests won't stop one Utah timber sale.

The Utah Environmental Congress says an oversight failed to list southern Utah's Aquarius Plateau on an official list of protected roadless areas.

The group is fighting a 4,000-acre sale in a roadless area of the plateau near Escalante.

The sale was approved last summer, but the group appealed and it was withdrawn for study.

A final decision by the Forest Service is expected within six months.

The Aquarius Plateau is the largest of Utah's high plateaus and hasn't been extensively logged since a beetle outbreak in the 1920s.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)