[ No headline ]

'Salvage Logging' Is a Timber Industry Ploy

One important fact about ''salvage logging'' was overlooked in the article ''US Eyes Opening 'High Risk' Forests,'' March 16. That is: ''Salvage logging'' is nothing but a cheap ploy by the timber industry to gain access (at taxpayers' expense) into the few pristine regions of the American West. The timber corporations' strategy is to get the Forest Service to build them roads into previously unlogged regions that need to be ''cleaned up.'' These regions would then lose qualification for wilderness status and would be easily accessible for clear-cutting. Such government road-building already represents one major form of subsidy to the timber industry, and salvage logging would increase this subsidy at great expense to the environment.

Daniel M. Vernon

Stillwater, Okla.

Department of Botany

Oklahoma State University

Your letters are welcome. For publication they must be signed and include your address and telephone number. Only a selection can be published and none acknowledged. Letters should be addressed to ''Readers Write'' and sent by mail to One Norway St., Boston, MA 02115, by fax to 617-450-2317, or by Internet E-mail (200 words maximum) to OPED@RACHEL.CSPS.COM.