tree spike

belated stone-manning

nam vet says death threats contract killer EF

https://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2021/07/15/Merkley_Letter.pdf

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1742&context=cmc_theses

from coming to humans. Further potential for harm, though, could (and has) come from reckless individuals who do not heed the guidelines of experienced spikers.

Though the person who spiked the tree in the case of the Louisiana-Pacific mill has never been found, the details of the spiking itself suggest that Earth First!ers or associated activists were not involved. The spiked tree was a mere 12 inches in diameter– not the sort of old growth targeted by environmentalists. Additionally, residents of the area from which the tree was extracted had previously complained about LouisianaPacific's operations in their area. One particular landowner in the area admitted to have spiked his own trees in response to the company frequently cutting several feet past property lines.71

new red:

Geo Alexander hurtby spike, but had prev complained of dangerous conditions at La-P and ignored; co wd not pay his medical bills; La-P put up 20K$ reward, but sheriff thinks it was neighbor trying to keep loggers off his land 49-50.

see bari iww

Among the eleven principles for a strategic "monkeywrenching" (or sabotage) campaign outlined by Earth First! founder Dave Foreman in his 1985 book Ecodefense, nonviolence was primary:

Monkeywrenching is nonviolent resistance to the destruction of natural diversity and wilderness. It is never directed against human beings or other forms of life. It is aimed at inanimate machines and tools that are destroying life. Care is always taken to minimize any possible threat to people, including the monkeywrenchers themselves.

In advocating for the legitimacy of of tree spiking, Foreman claimed - naively, some might argue - that injury to workers was unlikely because of the safety measures in place to protect workers in large timber mills. Because of the "remote" risk of injury to chainsaw operators associated with spiking the base of trees, Foreman recommended against using this particular form of spiking.

Nonetheless, tree spiking was seized upon by the logging industry as evidence of a violent agenda behind radical environmentalism. In 1987, when an employee of logging companyLouisiana-Pacificwas seriously injured by a bandsaw blade which shattered when it struck a 60 penny nail, company president Harry Merlo dubbed the incident "terrorism in the name of environmental goals". While Earth First! was condemned by state officials and the media, it later emerged that the chief suspect, against whom no charges were laid, was a 50 year old "survivalist" with no connection to Earth First! [5]

In 1990, Earth First! activist Judi Bari, prompted by concerns that the radical environmentalist movement's support for "tree spiking" was allowing the timber industry to drive a wedge between timber workers and environmentalists, led Earth First! in Northern California and Southern Oregon to renounce the controversial tactic. [6]

Linking environmentalism with terrorism

Tree spiking involves hammering a metal rod, nail or other material into a tree trunk, either inserting it at the base of the trunk where a logger might be expected to cut into the tree, or higher up where it would affect the sawmill later processing the wood. It is used to prevent logging by risking damage to saws, in the forest or at the mill, if the tree is cut, as well as possible injury or death to the worker. The spike can also lower the commercial value of the wood by causing discoloration, reducing the economic viability of logging in the long term, without threatening the life of the tree. It is illegal in the United States, and has been labeled a form of eco-terrorism.

It was first mentioned in the context of discouraging logging in Earth First! magazine.^[1][2] It came to prominence as a contentious tactic within unconventional environmentalist circles during the 1980s, after it was advocated by Earth First! co-founder Dave Foreman in his book Ecodefense. In the book, he discusses how to do it and how to avoid risks to the activist and the logger, such as by putting warning signs or marks in the area where the trees are being spiked.^[3][4]

On 8 May 1987, George Alexander, a millworker, was severely injured when a saw blade shattered after contact with a tree spike and cut his jaw in half.^[5][6] Louisiana-Pacific, Alexander's employer, offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the alleged tree spiker, but no charges were filed in this incident.^[7] The spiking itself was thought to be inconsistent with Earth First! tactics,^[8] as the trees were not in an old-growth forest^[4] and the placement of the nail suggested it was inserted after the tree was cut.^[7] Alexander later filed a lawsuit against Louisiana-Pacific^[7][9] claiming that the band saw had been weakened from previous strikes with nails^[10] but was forced to work with the saw or face dismissal.^[11]

This industrial accident led the leaders of Earth First! to denounce tree spiking.^[8][9][10] Tree spiking is labeled as eco-terrorism by logging advocates who claim it is potentially dangerous to loggers or mill-workers,^[12] although by 1996 only this single injury resulting from tree spiking had been reported.^[9]

By country

New Zealand

Beech trees that were being logged in 1998 in the Tuatapere area were spiked. Police were unable to trace those who were responsible.^[13]

Pat O'Dea, while he was the mayor for the Buller District, suggested in 2000 that Native Forest Action (NFA) had spiked trees during a direct action campaign against native forest logging on the West Coast.^[14] This was denied by NFA spokesperson Dean Bagient-Mercer.^[15] In 1998, Kevin Smith from Forest and Bird had said that tree spiking was proposed by some individuals involved in the NFA campaign.^[13]

United States

Following the 1987 injury of California mill worker George Alexander, anti-tree spiking legislation was introduced as the Anti-Tree Spiking Act,^[16] and was passed into federal law as an amendment, introduced by senators James A. McClure and Mark Hatfield,^[2][8] to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.^[17] In 1993, John Blount and others were convicted under this statute for spiking trees in the Clearwater National Forest, after Tracy Stone-Manning agreed to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution.^[18][19]

In 1990, Earth First! leaders, including Judi Bari and Mike Roselle, issued a memo and press release to Earth First! activists in Northern California and Southern Oregon, renouncing tree-spiking as a tactic on the eve of Redwood Summer, a 1990 campaign of nonviolent protests against logging of the redwood forest.^[20]

In 2021, President Biden nominated Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the Bureau of Land Management despite her involvement in a 1989 tree-spiking plot.^[21]

In popular culture

References

^ Watson, Leroy (21 December 1981). "Spikin:{':(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:" (PDF). Earth First!. Vol. 2 no. 2. Salt Lake City, UT: Earth First!. p. 6. ISSN 1055-8411. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-green-rage_2-1) Manes, Christopher (1990). *Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization* (1st ed.). Boston: Little, Brown and Co. p. 310. ISBN 978-0316545327. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ Haywood, Bill; Foreman, Dave, eds. (1993). Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching (3rd ed.). Chico, California: Abbzug Press. p. 350. ISBN 978-0963775108.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-stammer_4-1) Stammer, Larry B. (15 May 1987). "Environment Radicals Target of Probe Into Lumber Mill Accident". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 11 September 2020. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ "Booby-Trapped Tree Was Felled in Area Known for Bizarre Protests". Los Angeles Times. 16 May 1987. Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ Anderson, Jack; van Atta, Dale (5 March 1990). "Tree spiking an 'eco-terrorist' tactic". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 5 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-bari-secret-history_7-1) ^c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-bari-secret-history_7-2) Bari, Judi (17 February 1993). "The Secret History of Tree Spiking". Anderson Valley Advertiser. Archived from the original on 6 June 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-ecocentrists_8-1) ^c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-ecocentrists_8-2) Woodhouse, Keith Makoto (2018). The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 372. ISBN 978-0231165884.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-green-backlash_9-1) ^c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-green-backlash_9-2) Rowell, Andrew (1996). *Green Backlash*. Routledge. p. 153. ISBN 9780415128285.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-tree-spiker_10-1) Roselle, Mike; Mahan, Josh (2009). Tree Spiker: From Earth First! to Lowbagging: My Struggles in Radical Environmental Action (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-55619-8.
^ Watson, Paul (2 February 1995). "In Defense of Tree Spiking" (PDF). Earth First!. Vol. 15 no. 3. Eugene, OR: Earth First!. p. 10. ISSN 1055-8411. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ Bandow, Doug (12 April 1990). "Ecoterrorism: The Dangerous Fringe of the Environmental Movement" (PDF). The Backgrounder. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation (764). Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_spiking#cite_ref-Nixon_13-1) Nixon, Tina (1998-01-06). "Spikes put workers' lives at risk". The Southland Times.
^ Madgwick, Paul (2000-04-14). "Public backlash around NZ feared". The Press.
^ Bagient-Mercer, Dean (2000-04-27). "West Coast forests". Letter to the Editor. The Press.
^ H.R. 3075
^ Pub.L. 100–690, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988, H.R. 5210
^ "Clearwater forest trial opens in Idaho tree-spiking case". The Lewiston Tribune. Associated Press. 8 June 1993. Archivedfrom the original on 23 June 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ Partlow, Joshua; Grandoni, Dino (4 July 2021). "As a student, Tracy Stone-Manning sent a letter on behalf of eco-saboteurs. It's now complicating her chance to lead the Bureau of Land Management". Washington Post. Archived from the originalon 5 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
^ Bari, Judi; Cherney, Darryl; Roselle, Mike; Cloninger, Rick; Cloninger, Kathi; Evans, Larry; King, Greg; Davis, Pam; Martin, Daphne (April 1990). "Northern California Earth First! renounces tree spiking" (Press release). Earth First!. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008.
^ Streater, Scott; Yachnin, Jennifer. "Convicted tree spiker: Stone-Manning knew plans in advance". Greenwire. E&E. Retrieved 22 July 2021.

Categories:

TALK

Chainsaw range

Quote: 'A metal saw blade hitting an embedded spike could break or shatter, possibly injuring or killing loggers. This is why advocates of tree spiking say to drive the spike or nail into the tree above your head, where it'll be out of range of a chainsaw blade and not endanger the logger.' If it's out of range of a chainsaw blade, what's the point of spiking a tree? -Toptomcat 17:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

That's actually a red herring. The point of spiking trees is to damage bandsaws in the mills that try and slice the tree up. Even if it's above head height, it doesn't matter from the point of the bandsaws in the mill: they slice the tree lengthwise. However, a logger cutting a tree down with a chainsaw could also be injured by the chainsaw hitting a spike. Of course, you could argue that properly used, bandsaws aren't going to injure anyone if they break, and consequently hammering the spike in at a height is merely to avoid injuring the loggers with the chainsaws.

ManicParroT 22:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Damage to tree

There's no information here about the damage tree spiking would do to the tree itself, which, as it seems to me, would negate the whole point. Something isn't entirely clear. --Earl chip (talk) 23:14, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Uncited

I removed this uncited content dated August 2009: "It is believed that tree spiking originated in timber logging labor disputes in the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the late 19th century." I consulted multiple sources, including back issues of the Earth First! magazine, and books including:

The Ecocentrists (Keith Mako Woodhouse, 2008)
Green Rage (Christopher Manes, 1990)
Tree Spiker (Mike Roselle, 2009)
Ecodefense (various eds)

and could not find support for this claim. The most likely source might be from the University of Washington's labor history website [1] but I lack the energy to trawl through all the primary sources listed there.

This uncited claim has since spread around the web, so hopefully this is not re-added without a citation to an actual source that predates 2009. (Update: I've tracked down a potential lead in The New Settler Interviews by Beth Robinson Bosk, and may change this back once I obtain the book.) —Jonathan Chang 19:36, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

I removed this: "While both the County sheriff and Alexander's employers, Louisiana-Pacific, blamed environmentalists for the spiking, when Earth First! activist Judi Bari obtained the sheriff's files on the incident some years later, she discovered that one of the suspects for the spiking was Bill Ervin, a 50 year old property-owner, unconnected with Earth First!. While Ervin freely admitted spiking trees on his own land to prevent Louisiana-Pacific from taking timber on his side of the property line, he was never charged with spiking the tree that injured Alexander. ^[citation ^needed]" as it has sat, uncited for at least nine months, and Googling turned up no reliable sources. Achromatic (talk) 00:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

What were you using as search terms? I googled "Bill Ervin spike" and found a lengthy online article, with sources, published on the IWW.org website as the number one result. Is that not a reliablesource? 98.208.96.56 (talk) 03:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

....

Photo

:{:(style="position:relative;top:-1em"):}:

File:Effect of tree spiking.jpg

IsFile:Effect of tree spiking.jpg a useful image here? Despite the file title, it was once recaptioned as "Effect of nails for advertisement boards on a royal palm which are different from tree spiking", which I'm inclined to agree with: somebody genuinely spiking a tree would not put two nails in a line like this, and it looks like scraps of paper are visible around each nail. I'll remove the photo from the article for now. --Lord Belbury (talk) 19:09, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

This is not correct

The text reads sawmill worker George Alexander was nearly decapitated when a tree-spike shattered his sawblade at the Cloverdale -- however that is not the case, there was never any evidence that it was a tree spike regardless of what news reports claimed at the time, the nail that was struck was in a tree that had been used as part of a wire fence, the tree that the sawmill blade struck had not just that one nail but a section of barb wire embedded in the tree bark which wrapped around the wire and the nail.

The problem for the extant article is that news claims that it was a tree spike far out-number the safety inspection investigation and report documentation which found that it was a fence nail. Even in the news reports that it was a spike hammered by a human for deliberate sabotage are lacking references and citations to support that assertion whereas the various insurance and oversight entities extant at the time found that it was a fence nail that the blade encountered.SoftwareThing (talk) 19:28, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Tracy Stone-Manning

Her nomination has nothing to do with the subject of the article and deserves no mention except perhaps a parenthetical reference after her name. A separate paragraph is misplaced here.

I disagree. The only reason I came to this page to read about tree spiking was because of Tracy Stone-Manning's nomination.

Booby-Trapped Tree Was Felled in Area Known for Bizarre Protests

L.A. TIMES ARCHIVES

MAY 16, 1987

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

UKIAH, Calif. —

The booby-trapped tree that injured a Cloverdale mill worker last week was harvested in an area plagued by bizarre logging protests, including animal mutilations, Mendocino County Sheriff Tim Shea said Friday.

Such incidents, including the draping of beheaded or skinned animals atop bulldozers and other heavy equipment, could indicate that the booby-trapped trees were the responsibility of an unbalanced individual rather than Earth First or any other environmental group.

Shea said several mutilations have been reported to his office, the most recent one being phoned in April 18 by an employee ofLouisiana-Pacific Corp., which owns the Cloverdale mill.

A 23-year-old millworker was severely injured May 8 when a large band saw struck an 11-inch spike driven into a tree. The saw blade shattered, shooting jagged metal shards into the worker’s face, knocking out several of his teeth and tearing away part of his cheek and jaw.

this was the first case in which a deliberate spiking caused such serious injury. Tree spiking has been used by some radical environmentalist groups to protest logging, but the groups usually warned authorities that the trees had been tampered with--both to prevent injury and discourage the cutting of the trees in the first place.

“Those saws are made of a very brittle, very high-tensile steel, and when they hit a piece of iron, they just blow up,” said Ron Lewis, federal timber sale administrator in Oregon and Washington. “Everyone in the place knows to duck, no matter how far away they are.”

Some lumber mills, he said, have tried using metal detectors on logs--not only to spot “eco-tage,” or ecologial sabotage, but also to find spikes and other metals used to install fences, tents or private utility lines. However, that slow, costly, labor-intensive process has proven impractical.

Other forms of ecological sabotage, have included dumping sand or other abrasives into the engines or gas tanks of heavy equipment left overnight at logging camps.

History’s largest spiking occurred in October, 1984, when a group called the Hardesty Avengers spiked hundreds of trees in the Hardesty Mountain portion of the Willamette National Forest, said Mike Kerrick, U.S. Forest Service manager in Oregon. Despite a $9,000 reward, no one was arrested for that crime.

A $20,000 reward is offered for information on the Mendocino County spiking.

Although Louisiana-Pacific Corp. is a frequent verbal target of established environmentalists, the lack of warnings about the spiking and the coincidental mutilation of sheep, dogs, deer and pigs in the area had led police to believe the latest incident may be the work of an individual or small renegade group.

https://archive.iww.org/history/library/Bari/TreeSpiking1/

The

Secret History of Tree Spiking - Part 1

In May, 1987, sawmill worker George Alexander was nearly decapitated when a tree-spike shattered his sawblade at the Cloverdale Louisiana-Pacific mill in northern California.

This grisly accident sent shock waves through our community, and eventually led Northern California Earth First! to renounce tree spiking. Southern Oregon and Southern Willamette Earth First! joined us, as well as a few Earth First!ers from Stumptown, but that's all.

The rest of Earth First! still endorses spiking, and many of them even today react to our no-spiking policy by denouncing us as traitors and dismissing us as wimps, without ever considering the reasons for our actions. Because of this, because there are so many new Earth First!ers who don't know this history, I think it is time to re-examine the issue of tree-spiking. A few years ago, George Alexander and his wife Laurie agreed to talk to me about the 1987 incident. The following account is based on my conversation with them.

"I was the perfect victim," began George Alexander, "I was nobody." George, a lifetime Mendocino County resident and son of an old-time Willits logger, was 23 years old and just married, with his wife Laurie three months pregnant at the time of the accident. George's job at the mill was called off-bearer. The off-bearer operates a huge band saw that makes the first rough cut on logs as they come into the mill, sectioning off slices of wood that will later be cut to standard lengths and planed for finished lumber.

Off-bearer is one of the most dangerous jobs in the mill. The saw that George Alexander worked on was sized for old-growth logs-52 feet around, with a ten-inch blade of high tensile steel. "That saw was so powerful that when you turned it off you could make three more cuts through a 20-foot log before it stopped," George told me. One of the dangers of working as off-bearer is that if the blade hits a hard knot or metal debris (from old fences, choker chains, nails, etc., embedded in the wood), the sawteeth can break. To protect against this, workers have to wear a heavy face mask and stay on the alert, checking each log as it goes through.

George knew the job was dangerous, but he also was confident of his skill. "I always figured that if the blade ever hit me, it would hit me on the urn." he said. He knew every sound the saw made, and could tell by listening when something was going wrong. He also knew to look for the tell-tale black stains that usually show up on the smooth surface of the de-barked logs if metal is present in the wood.

Although George Alexander was an LP employee, he was no company man. Louisiana-Pacific had earned his disrespect long agothrough the callous way they treat their employees. "We're not even people to them," he said. "All they care about is production." The perfect example of this L-P management attitude was Dick Edwards, the day shift foreman. Edwards was always after everyone, but he seemed to go out of his way to harass George. In the months before the tree spiking, Edwards would often stand on the catwalk overlooking George's work station with LP Western Division head Joe Wheeler, just watching George work.

L-P has never been known to spend too much time maintaining equipment or worrying about worker safety. But in the weeks preceding the tree spiking incident, conditions had gotten worse than usual. The bandsaw blade was wobbling when it ran, and cracks had begun to appear in it. But when George and other workers complained, Edwards shined them on, saying the new blades were not in yet, and they would have to ma1ke do. "That blade was getting so bad," said George, "That I almost didn't go to work that day."

Normally when a big tree is sawed, they start from the outside and square off the edges first. But the tree that George was sawing on May 8, 1987 was a 12-inch pecker-pole, and because it was so small he took the first cut down the middle. Halfway through the 20-foot log, the saw hit a 60-penny nail. "That nail must have been recently placed and countersunk," George told me. He had checked the log when he started cutting it and had seen no sign of the metal. And because he hit the nail square-on, there was no warning sound. "Usually there's a high-pitched metal sound and you have time to get out of the way," explained George. "This time I didn't hear nothing but 'BOOM!'"

The next thing he knew, George was lying on the floor covered with his own blood. "I knew I was dying. And all I could think about was Dick Edwards, and all the shit he gave me when I complained about the saw. I tried to get up, but they pushed me back down. I tried to beckon to Edwards so he would come close enough for me to get my hands around his throat in a death grip. If I had to die, I wanted to take that bastard with me."

A 12-foot section of the huge sawblade had broken off and hit George in the throat and face, ripping through his face mask and cutting into his jugular vein. His jaw was broken in five places and a dozen teeth were knocked out. The blade was wrapped around him, and his co-workers had to blowtorch it off while they tried to keep him from bleeding to death.

"The saw hit me flat," said George. "If it had hit me with the teeth I'd be dead. I'm only here because my friend Rich Phillips held my veins together in the hour before the ambulance came."

LP didn't call the press right away, but when they did they had a field day. "Tree Spiking Terrorism," screamed the headline in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. And even though there was no evidence that Earth First! was involved, the Eureka Times-Standard proclaimed, Earth First! Blamed for Worker's Injuries." Mendocino County Sheriff Shea put out a widely quoted press release that was almost gleeful in its condemnation.

"This heinous and vicious criminal act is a felony offense, punishable by imprisonment in State Prison for up to three years," he wrote, "Still undetermined in the investigation is the motive of the suspect or suspects, to deter logging operations or inflict great bodily injury and death upon lumber processing personnel," Even Louisiana-Pacific President Harry Merlo got into the fray, blaming "terrorism in the name of environmental goals" for George's injury.

Meanwhile, George and Laurie Alexander had a different take on the incident. "I'm against tree spiking," George told the press from his hospital bed. "But I don't like clearcutting either." Laurie also tried to include L-P in the list of culprits. "I hate L-P," she told me. "I like trees." But the press wouldn't print a word Laurie said, and George's comments about mill safety and clearcutting were mentioned in only one news article, by Eric Brazil of the San Francisco Examiner.

Earth First!, on the other hand, was much less generous in their reaction, displaying practically no sympathy for this innocent man who had just been through such a terrifying ordeal caused by a spiked tree. And after advocating the tactic for years even putting out a manual on how to do it and teaching tree spiking workshops at [the] Earth First! Rendezvous, when the shit came down they tried to disassociate themselves from it. "This is probably the first time we've made international news, and we weren't even involved in it," was one comment attributed to Earth First! in the San Francisco newspapers. Dave Foreman came off sounding even more flippant, as he was quoted as saying, "I think it's unfortunate that somebody got hurt, but you know I quite honestly am more concerned about old growth forests, spotted owls, wolverines, and salmon - and nobody is forcing people to cut those trees," This moral arrogance didn't win Earth First! many supporters in our area. In fact it discredited Earth First!'s claim of non-involvement, and made it even easier to tar us with the incident and portray us as unfeeling "terrorists."

But did Earth First! spike that tree? The answer is almost definitely no. Back in 1987, Earth First! was just getting started in Mendocino County, and the only issue at the time was old growth. There was no consciousness yet about baby tree logging, and the spiked tree was only 12 inches in diameter, There were signs that this may have been the work of a disturbed individual. LP traced the tree to a cut on Cameron Ridge Road near the coastal town of Elk, where neighbors had been complaining about LP's liquidating the forest and threatening their water supply. One of the local residents was a strange 50-year-old man with bleached blond hair, who drifted in and out of the area and mostly kept to himself. He liked guns, and was described by neighbors as a survivalist. Before the tree spiking incident, loggers reported finding mutilated animals around the site--a beheaded deer hanging from a tree, a skinned dog draped over a bulldozer - hardly Earth First! tactics, to say the least.

The Mendocino County Sheriff was certainly aware of the survivalist tree spike suspect, but they were strangely quiet about him, and the case was eventually dropped without any charges being filed. Recently, when I got my FBI files, I found out why. The sheriff's reports on the spiking were included in my file, and I learned that the suspect's name was Bill Ervin. He lived in southern California, but he owned property in Elk and sometimes stayed there in a crude cabin. Ervin freely admitted spiking trees on his own side of the property line, and he did it because L-P is well known in this area for cutting a few feet past their property line and taking their neighbors' trees. "I may get crucified for this," Ervin said when questioned by the sheriff. "I may be in error, but I understand that one can spike trees on one's own property."

Bill Ervin made no secret of the trees he spiked. He marked them with yellow flagging and left the spikes sticking part way out of the trees. He borrowed the hammer from his neighbor and told him what he intended to use it for. He also told a truck driver at the LP logging site, and he told a California Highway Patrol cop. So it is reasonable to assume that LP may have known in advance that there were spiked trees in the area. But if this was the work of a lone crazy person, that still begs the question of where he even got the idea of spiking the tree. The answer is probably Dave Foreman's book, Eco-Defense.

There is also reason to believe that the tree that broke George Alexander's sawblade was not spiked on Bill Ervin's property, but rather was hit while lying on a log deck after it was cut. The saw hit the spike about nine feet up the tree. If you figure a foot for the stump, that means it would have to have been spiked ten feet off the ground. Bruce Anderson described the technique like this in the May 27, 1987, Anderson Valley Advertiser: "One average-sized person teams up with a midget. The midget gets up on the shoulders of his partner to hammer in the spikes. LP can nail those pesky terrorists before they nail the trees by arresting any stray midgets they spot roaming around Mendocino County."

Bill Ervin also insists that he used only 16-penny (approximately six-inch) nails on the trees he spiked. No other size nail was found when the sheriffs and LP security cops inspected the trees in the area, and there is no evidence that Ervin ever possessed either any larger nails or a hammer big enough to pound them in with. Yet the nail in the log at the Cloverdale mill was a 60-penny, 11-inch spike. The sheriffs gave Bill Ervin a lie detector test, however, and they claim he failed on the following questions: "Did you spike the logs at the log deck on Cameron Road?" and "Did you spike any trees outside your property?"

So all in all, it's still unclear who was at fault in the Cloverdale tree-spiking. We don't even know if the tree was spiked to keep it from being cut, or to create a martyr and make Earth First! look like terrorists. But it really doesn't matter whether an Earth First!er, a lone survivalist, or L-P president Harry Merlo himself spiked that tree. The point is that if you advocate a tactic, you had better be prepared to take responsibility for its results. And I don't want anything to do with causing the kind of injuries suffered by George Alexander.

While George was convalescing from those injuries, he was contacted by someone from the yellow ribbon gang of pro-timber stooges. George doesn't remember her name, just that it was "some woman from Humboldt County." She asked him to go on tour with her denouncing Earth First! for tree spiking. And George refused.

No matter what you think of LP's forest practices, this much should be clear: George Alexander is not the enemy. He has no say over his bosses' policies, either in or out of the mill. I have heard Earth First!ers say that doesn't matter, he shouldn't be working at an LP mill. Well, I shouldn't be driving a car either, but that doesn't make it okay to put a bomb in it.

After George refused to go on tour denouncing us, he was forced to return to work at L-P before his injuries even healed. His and Laurie's baby was about to be born, he needed money, and there were not many jobs where he and his family live. George got worker's compensation for the time he was off work, but LP didn't offer him a cent for the trauma and hardship he suffered. They made a big public show of putting up a $20,000-dollar reward for the information leading to the conviction of the spiker, but George Alexander had to file a lawsuit against Louisiana Pacific to get anything at all. And while the company was crying crocodile tears over his injuries in public, in private they were fighting him tooth and nail over his damage claim. He ended up with just $9,000 and an involuntary transfer to night shift."They used my name all over the country," George told me. "Then they laid me off when the mill closed down."

"LP is just sorry I didn't die," said George Alexander. "Yeah, I know," I replied. "They're sorry I didn't die, too."...

https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sullivan-calls-on-biden-to-withdraw-blm-nominee-tied-to-eco-terrorism

Press Releases

06.22.21

SULLIVAN CALLS ON BIDEN TO WITHDRAW BLM NOMINEE TIED TO ECO-TERRORISM

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) last night called on President Joe Biden to withdraw his nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning to serve as the next director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Sen. Sullivan argued that Stone-Manning is unfit to serve due to her troubling history with Earth First!, a radical environmental group involved in eco-terrorist activities, like tree spiking.

On Monday, the former BLM director during the Obama administration, Bob Abbey, called on Stone-Manning to withdraw her nomination.

Transcript

Madam President, I am here on the Senate floor this afternoon to call on President Biden to withdraw his nomination to lead the Bureau of Land Management, Tracy Stone-Manning. He should withdraw her for the reasons I am going to talk about here on the Senate floor, but let me stipulate that, while I have often spoken about what I consider far-left extremist environmentalists who are taking over many elements of the Biden administration, often in the context of why I voted against their confirmation, I have not yet called on--haven't in my entire Senate career--a nomination to be withdrawn before they even have gone through their [vote] before a Senate committee. But I am doing it this afternoon.

The reason I have never done this before is because we have not yet confronted someone with Tracy Stone-Manning's past, which involves being a member, part of an extreme group that performed violent acts as part of their platform for getting attention in America--violence, a group engaging in overt ecoterrorism.

By the way, this is becoming a bipartisan issue--a serious bipartisan issue--as I am going to talk about in a little bit more detail.

The Director of BLM from the Obama-Biden administration just yesterday made a statement saying that, if these allegations are true, which they are, then, he firmly believes that her nomination should be withdrawn by the President. That is Mr. Bob Abbey. So this is a serious issue, and it is a bipartisan issue.

Before I talk about Tracy Stone-Manning's involvement with ecoterrorism, let me start by saying that BLM is an incredibly important and very powerful Federal Agency, particularly as it relates to my State, the great State of Alaska. The Alaska BLM manages more surface and subsurface acres in my State than in any other State in the country, by far. In fact, I haven't done the math, but I believe that they manage more acreage in Alaska than they do in the rest of the lower 48 combined. That is how important BLM is in my State.

Let me give you some of the numbers. This includes over 70 million surface acres of land and 220 million subsurface acres. That is the land equivalent to about one-fifth of the entire lower 48 States. Most States can't even comprehend that size. One-fifth of the lower 48 of the United States of America is the amount of land BLM manages just in the great State of Alaska. So it is a huge amount of land and, of course, by definition, it is a huge amount of power that this Federal Agency has over my State and the people I am honored to represent.

And it is imperative--imperative--for the Director of this Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, with so much power and so much control over my State and its future in economic opportunity for working Alaskan families--that the manager of BLM for the country be trustworthy--to be honest, to be fairminded, to be beyond reproach, and, certainly, not to have been involved in an organization that perpetuated violence against its fellow Americans.

And from what we know about Tracy Stone-Manning, she is none of these things--trustworthy, honest, and fairminded.

That this administration is full of people with far-left agendas certainly isn't surprising. We all know that the national Democratic Party is much further to the left than they were even 4 years ago with the Obama-Biden administration. But what is shocking beyond surprising is that the President of the United States would put forward someone for this incredibly important position in BLM who is not only far left but a member of a group that was an ecoterrorist organization, a group that was undertaking violence against their fellow Americans so they could make a point on environmental issues in America.

This is not an exaggeration. Tracy Stone-Manning was a member of Earth First!, a radical, far-left group that has engaged repeatedly in what is defined as ecoterrorism.

But she wasn't just a member of Earth First!; she herself was complicit in putting metal spikes--big, thick ones--in trees that were meant to either threaten to hurt or gravely injure those Americans who were harvesting trees, who were cutting down trees legally, who were putting trees in saw mills legally.

This was a common technique--tree spiking--deployed by such ecoterrorists in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Earth First! called such tactics “monkey wrenching.” That is kind of cute. It is dangerous. It could kill people--”monkey wrenching.”

Logging crews and the Americans who were legally harvesting timber in our country might have called such tactics terrifying, and certainly called such tactics very, very dangerous.

So let me briefly talk about the group that Tracy Stone-Manning was a member of. Earth First! began in 1980 by disaffected environmentalists who thought the movement wasn't radical enough, thought the movement wasn't getting enough attention. So they founded a new group that wanted to get more attention, sometimes by perpetuating violence. Among its proposed founding principles, “all human decisions should consider Earth first, mankind second”--I am quoting now--”mankind second.” OK. Not sure many U.S. Senators would agree with that. And “the only true test of morality is whether an action, individual, social or political, benefits the earth.” These are founding principles of this organization.

Given these principles, it is no mystery that the group's slogan is this: “No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth.” In their view, “no compromise” meant destroying property, putting steel spikes in trees that could kill someone trying to harvest a tree, and Earth First! celebrated and encouraged such actions.

The group even put out a manual--yes, a manual--detailing tree spiking and instructions on how to do other sabotage activities: cut down powerlines, flatten tires, burn machinery of those who were trying to harvest trees legally.

We harvest trees legally in Alaska. We have loggers who do that, who are from hard-working families.

David Foreman, the founder of Earth First!, talked about all of these activities, and he said: “This is where the ecoteur can have fun.” That is a quote from the founder of Earth First! “Fun.” That is what he called this--”fun.”

Tell that to those violently hurt by some of Earth First!'s tactics.

This is how an article in theWashington Post,from this time, described such an incident of tree spiking that severely, violently hurt one of our fellow Americans. And now I am going to quote from this article:

George Alexander, a third-generation mill worker, was just starting his shift at the Louisiana-Pacific lumber mill in Cloverdale, Calif., when the log that would alter his life rolled down his conveyor belt toward a high-speed saw he was working on.

By the way, I have seen these saws in Alaska, in mills in Alaska. They are huge. This isn't just some kind of tiny saw. They are gigantic, and they spin at incredibly fast speeds with huge teeth. They are dangerous, even when you are operating without tree spikes in the trees.

Let me continue. Here is the continuation of this article from the Washington Post: It was May 1987, and George Alexander was 23 years old. His job was to split logs. He was nearly 3 feet away when the log he was working on hit his saw, and the saw, this giant saw, exploded. One-half of the blade stuck in the log. The other half hit Alexander in the head--again, these are giant saws--tearing through his safety helmet and tearing through his face shield. His face was slashed from eye to chin, his teeth were smashed, and his jaw was cut in half.

That is what Earth First! did to this young American doing his job with a tree spike in it.

I am continuing with the Washington Post article: George Alexander had never even heard of a sabotage tactic called tree spiking until he himself had become a victim of “eco-terrorism.”

That is the Washington Post's word, not my word, “eco-terrorism.”

Someone who objected to tree cutting had imbedded a huge steel spike in the log that violently jammed the saw.

And changed George Alexander's life. Tree spiking.

That is the Washington Post.

These were the kinds of tactics that Tracy Stone-Manning, the Biden administration's choice to lead the BLM for America, once conspired in. Does that disturb you, America?

Every U.S. Senator on the floor here in this body should be very, very disturbed.

Mr. President--and now I am talking to the President of the United States--think about this, sir. I say respectfully:Come on, man. This is the most qualified American citizen you can find to be the BLM Director?

She was part of a group--not just a radical, extreme environmental group but a radical, extreme, violent, environmental group.

President Biden, this should be a redline that we all agree to: no nominees who conducted violence against their fellow Americans.

But what did she do specifically? The Biden administration's Director of BLM--nominated Director of BLM--here is what she did. In 1989, she did a friend, a fellow Earth First! colleague--”comrade” maybe is a better word--she did a friend, a comrade, a fellow comrade a favor. She rewrote word-for-word a profane, anonymous letter from this member of Earth First! about the 500 pounds of tree spikes that Earth First! had hammered into trees in Idaho--by Earth First! Pretty dangerous. Pretty violent. She rewrote the letter on a rented typewriter because, she later told a reporter, “her fingerprints were all over” it. So she knew she was obviously involved in criminal activity. So she didn't just handwrite it. She didn't want her fingerprints on it. She typed it. She then sent the letter to the FBI.

She kept quiet on what she did for years--that was in 1989--until she came forward in 1993 and received immunity for her part in this tree spiking in Idaho, 500 pounds of spikes. This is a serious operation. Deadly. Could be deadly. She received immunity for her part in this tree spiking when prosecutors went after the other members of Earth First! and she testified about it.

Here is something that should be very simple for all of us. No matter how young, no matter how naive, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management for the United States of America should not--and I repeat, should not--have ever been involved in ecoterrorism. That is simply unacceptable, and the President of the United States should get that, and certainly every U.S. Senator should get that.

Working with people who were so radical on environmental issues that they thought it was OK to perpetuate violence against their fellow American citizens--come on, man.

President Biden, you cannot be serious.

It is not only me who thinks this is an outrage. I want to compliment my Senate colleague Senator Barrasso, who has been doing a great job. Unfortunately, our press has been asleep at the switch. Senator Barrasso has been doing a great job of highlighting these very issues. But, as I said earlier, this is now becoming a bipartisan issue. It is not just me and Senator Barrasso who have been raising this issue. Just yesterday, Bob Abbey, who led the BLM from 2009 through 2012 under President Obama and Vice President Biden, said the following:

If the reports regarding Ms. Stone-Manning's involvement with spiking trees are true, then I firmly believe she should immediately withdraw her name from further consideration for the BLM director job.

Let me read that again. The BLM Director of the Biden-Obama administration just yesterday said the following:

Well, guess what. The reports about her involvement with tree spiking by the ecoterrorist organization Earth First! meant to harm her fellow Americans are true. They are true.

Madam President, there are other issues that also call into question Ms. Stone-Manning's character. I am not going to get into these. I will let others focus on them--low interest loans, other things. That is in some ways, in my view, a distraction. Her involvement with an organization that was focused on ecoterrorism certainly disqualifies her, and the President of the United States should know this.

I didn't agree with Bob Abbey on much when he was the head of BLM under the Obama-Biden administration, but I certainly agree with him about Tracy Stone-Manning, and I believe the President of the United States should withdraw her name from further consideration. If the President doesn't do that because he gets pressure from the extreme left, then I certainly hope--I certainly hope--my colleagues here in the U.S. Senate, Democrats and Republicans, will resoundingly vote to reject this nomination when it comes to the Senate floor.

Yes, we have differences on issues of resource development, energy for America, certainly on issues of jobs and resource development in my great State, the great State of Alaska. We have differences. There is no doubt about it. But here is the thing: We all know--I think every one of us, all 100 Senators, know and would say publicly that these differences should be resolved peacefully in debates here on the Senate floor, at the ballot box, arguing these issues--forcefully, yes, but not violently, not with violence.

So if this nominee comes to this floor, it shouldn't be even a close vote; it should be 100 to 0 rejecting her.

To my Democratic colleagues, I hope you join me, like Mr. Bob Abbey, in saying: Mr. President, guess what--you screwed up here. Withdraw her.

But if he won't do that, I hope every U.S. Senator votes against this. We cannot condone, endorse, or vote for somebody who has been part of an ecoterrorist, radical, extreme, violent organization.

My colleagues, America will be watching. If you vote for her, you have to go home and explain that vote to your fellow Americans. As I mentioned, it is one thing for this administration to put forward far-left, extreme environmental nominees. It is quite another to put forward afar-left, extreme, violent environmental nominee,and that is what she is.

To the President of the United States: Respectfully, sir, you need to withdraw this nomination.

To my colleagues on the Senate floor here: Respectfully to all of you, if the President doesn't take this commonsense action, we need to decisively reject this nomination when it comes to the floor of the U.S. Senate.