Judge tells feds to pay $6.9M to timber company

The federal government has been ordered to pay an Oregon timber company nearly $6.9 million for violating several timber sales contracts. The judgment is intended to compensate Scott Timber, an affiliate of the Roseburg Forest Products Co. in Dillard, Ore., for lost profits related to timber sales that were suspended more than a decade ago. In 1999, the U.S. Forest Service awarded three contracts to Scott Timber which allowed the company to harvest trees from the Umpqua National Forest. According to a federal judge, the agency violated its "covenant of good faith and fair dealing and duty to cooperate" because it didn't inform Scott Timber that the contracts were likely to be targeted in court by environmentalists. Environmentalists had previously filed a legal complaint challenging the Forest Service's compliance with forest management law. During settlement negotiations, environmentalists told the agency they planned to expand their litigation to include several more timber sales, including those later awarded to Scott Timber, according to court documents...more