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DesMoines Register


16 arrested at Menards protesting use of  old trees


 Students chain themselves together at the neck


 By TOM ALEX  Register Staff Writer  10/27/1999

 Students chained themselves together at the neck  with bicycle locks
Tuesday and staged a sit-in at a Des Moines Menards  store to protest
the sale of materials made from old-growth forest.

Police met with Menards employees and decided to wait for the students to
unlock themselves. After about five hours, the students became
uncomfortable and stopped the protest, students said.

Students who obstructed drives or doorways were charged with  criminal
trespass, police said. Others were charged with failure to  disperse. In
all, 16 students were arrested and taken to the Des Moines  jail and the
Polk County Jail.

Police Sgt. Richard Jones said: "I suppose most of them live in frame
houses. We took them to concrete dormitories."

The Menards store is located at 6000 S.E. 14th St.

Jill Peterson, a Grinnell College freshman, said the protest targeted
Menards because it had not agreed to quit selling products from
old-growth forests, which in general are more than 250 years old. She
claimed that the company was using old-growth wood from around the
world for rake handles, doors and other items, "which can easily be
made from renewable sources."

The student protesters, from Drake University and Grinnell College, are
members of STEP, Iowa Students Towards Environmental Protection.

Dawn Sands, a spokes- woman with Menards, said the company has  been
talking with the Rainforest Action Network of San Francisco. She  said
Menards was under the impression the company would not be  targeted in
the protest.

"We are working to see what can be done," Sands said. "We buy from
many vendors, and it's hard to know what, if any, materials would
cause them concern. What they should be protesting are the logging
companies" involved in those practices.

Mark Westlund, communications director with Rainforest Action  Network,
said Menards was not removed from a list of its so-called  "Foolish
Five," because the company failed to send a letter saying it  would phase
out use of old-growth forest products.

Others on the Rainforest list are Home Base, 84 Lumber, Payless
Cashways and Wickes.

Peterson said Home Depot, the site of a demonstration last year in West
Des Moines, had been taken off the list. In August, Arthur Blank,
president and chief executive of Home Depot, promised that the  company
would stop selling wood products from environmentally  sensitive areas.
___________________________________________


Rainforest Action Network
221 Pine Street #500
San Francisco, CA 94014

Telephone: 415/398-4404; fax: 415/398-2732
Website: http://www.ran.org


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