Plum Creek drops forest-road request

LOS ANGELES — A controversial U.S. Forest Service plan that would have made it easier to build houses in Western mountain forests was dropped Monday when the nation's largest private landowner — Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber — abruptly backed off the request that sparked the issue.

Plum Creek, which owns 8 million acres nationwide, withdrew its request for an explicit legal understanding that it has the right to use roads across Forest Service lands for residential development, not just for logging.

The firm cited widespread opposition to the proposal it negotiated behind closed doors over two years with Forest Service chief Mark Rey.

"When we heard about the concern for further input we said, 'Well, that makes sense,' and we apologized and set up some [public] meetings," said Kathy Budinick, a spokeswoman for Plum Creek.

Budinick said public resistance was at odds with efforts to promote Plum Creek as a good corporate citizen. Last year, the company, which owns 1.2 million acres in Montana, agreed to sell 320,000 acres of sensitive land in the state to the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land.

"We don't want a lot of people to think we're out to pave a lot of roads in Montana, because we're just not," Budinick said.

The change of heart came after news reports that Rey was preparing to push the deal through in the last days of the Bush administration, despite opposition from Montana's congressional delegation and President-elect Obama.

The withdrawal was welcomed by local officials in Montana, who complained that Rey's secret negotiation undermined their efforts to contain development in the fast-growing region.

Environmentalists expressed delight, noting that Plum Creek's decision forestalls court fights over the issue that both sides said were inevitable.

Bethanie Walder, executive director of Wildlands CPR in Missoula, noted that "socially conscious" investors in Plum Creek had initiated shareholder resolutions against the move.

But in an interview, Rey repeated his belief that Plum Creek has the right to use the roads as it sees fit. Lost along with the deal making that right explicit, he said, were concessions the company made, such as forming homeowners associations preferred by county governments.