The Spokesman-Review from Spokane, Washington • 6

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 1994 PAGE B1 THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW DA'H 0ED I'T'I ALSO TODAY: NORTHWEST, B3 EDITORIALS, B6 ROUNDTABLE, B7 ON HOLD A plan to lower two Montana reservoirs has been delayed. STORY, B8 Dtae LaRocco joins in drive for ban on log exports Move would help alleviate timber shortage, legislator says Even so, Idaho mills suffer when coastal companies that do export logs raise the bids on federal timber sold in Idaho. said. But he conceded that an export would be a benefit to the people of ban the Northwest and would provide more jobs. Other timber companies did not return telephone calls.

Coeur dAlene industry spokesman Joe Hinson said log exports arent an issue in Idaho. The short supply of federal timber is. The Feman Ranger District east of Coeur dAlene is expected to sell only 3 million board feet of dead and dying timber this year, Hinson noted. Thats the thing thats keeping us awake at night, not log exports, said Hinson, executive vice president of the Intermountain Forest Industry Association. The Export Administration Act gives Clinton the power to restrict the export of raw materials in short supply, LaRocco said.

He is calling for an export ban until the administrations goals of sustainable forests and predictable timber supplies are achieved, probably in 1997. LaRocco joins Democrats Pat Williams, Montana; Peter DeFazio, Oregon; Bill Richardson, New Mexico; and Dan Hamburg, California. Boise Cascade Corp. does not export its logs but is not ready to endorse LaRoccos proposal, company spokesman Doug Bartels states, including a number of large export companies flush with the profits from their export operations, he wrote. The Japanese pay up to $1,500 per thousand board feet of timber, or four times the U.S.

price. The timber comes from privately owned land in coastal states. Its against the law to export federal timber. Idaho also makes it illegal to export state timber. Private companies in Idaho that choose to export their logs cannot make up the difference with federal timber so few, if any, do it.

mostly to Japan, he said. Americas trade imbalance with Japan is $60 billion a year, primarily through automobiles and electronics. The harmful effects of the log export trade are not restricted to Oregon, Washington and Northern California, LaRocco wrote Clinton. Mills in Idaho, Montana and other states of the Inland West are increasingly finding themselves on the losing end of bidding wars with timber-starved mills from the coastal By J. Todd Foster Staff writer I COEURdALENE An Idaho congressman has joined four other Western lawmakers in urging President Clinton to ban log exports.

The move would help alleviate the timber shortage and force the Japanese to trade fairly, said U.S. Rep. Larry LaRocco, D-Idaho. 4 Billions of board feet of unprocessed logs sail every year from Pacific Northwest ports, Legislature eager to add prison space Board of Correction already has support Associated Press BOISE A dramatic jump in Idahos prison population has forced the state Board of Correction to ask the Legislature for millions of dollars to add cell space and pay counties for housing state inmates. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said the boards emergency request would be welcomed by legislative leaders eager to address the problem while $27 million remains in the states cash surplus.

The preferred plan is to get some new beds on line, Rep. Celia Gould, R-Buhl, told the three-member Board of Correction. And I imagine long-term its the cheapest. The Legislatures Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee was expected to consider the request Thursday or Friday, but Gould said she was surprised correction officials had not acted sooner. The board did not ask Gov.

Cecil Andrus to include any money to build prison cells in this years budget request to the Legislature. The governor has said he would seek no more construction funding for a prison system he considers a black hole, but his long-range budget plan calls for seeking $4.8 million in two' years to staff a new maximum-security prison. The Board of Correction considered asking for a tax-financed scheme to finance prison construction through bond issues, but it dropped that idea late last fall because members believed they first needed to lobby for legislative support. Gould said Tuesday that they already have it, and should have been more aggressive in stating their case over the past two months for help with the prison systems needs. I just dont think youve beat the drum loud enough, she said.

You people are missing an opportunity. Department of Correction Director James Spalding said the problem can wait no longer. The prison population was expected to grow by 67 inmates between October March, but the system actually received 166 new inmates. The total population on Monday was 2,726 inmates, including 199 in county jails. Even with 190 new beds at the prison complex south of Boise, next months opening of the 128-bed womens prison in Pocatello, and the prospect of some additional county jail beds and other Please see PRISONS: B2 Gunshot victim knows value of blood donors LEWISTON Surprisingly, there was no pain when the shotgun blast ripped into her stomach and exited through her upper right leg.

So this is what it feels like to die, thought Jean Stroud Gephart, after the robber shot her at close range in her convenience store with a sawed-off, 20-gauge shotgun. Sprawled in a puddle of blood, Gephart was tempted to close her eyes and give in to the calm sensation enveloping her body. But the thought of her two childreh jolted her awake. i Stuffing part of her dress inside the hole in her stomach to curtail the bleeding, Gephart vowed she would fight. I have a rare blood type O-negative, she repeatedly told paramedics on the way to the hospital.

Can you make sure they have it? Almost seven years later, Gephart stands behind the counter of Lewiston Express Mart and reminds her regular customers to help save a life. Remember to donate blood, OK? she tells construction, workers and secretaries who stop for sandwiches on their lunch breaks. Almost every customer knows what happened when Gephart was wheeled into St. Josephs Regional Medical Center on June 19, 11987. Only six units of O-negative blood were available.

Gephart needed 18. Your body only holds 10 units, but I kept losing what was put into me, she says. When a call was put out for donations, people in Lewiston lined up to give. Now, Gephart is determined to give that blood back. Every three months since the shooting, she has donated a pint of blood to the American Red 1 Maybe it will help save somebody elses life, she says.

You never know when someone will be hurt like I was. What do you do if the blood isnt there? You cant manufacture it. You need the real Even with donations, Gephart was not expected to live after she was shot by a Texas felon on a balmy summer night. Gephart was not on duty, but had stopped by the store to see how a new clerk was doing. Shortly before closing time, 29-year-old Juan Sanchez, on parole for a Texas murder, strolled in and began making demands in Spanish.

1 The only word I understood was robbery, recalls Gephart, now 41. I was about to turn toward the till, when he shot me. The gun was hidden beneath his shirt. I never even saw it. Sanchez fled the store without any loot and was apprehended by police that night.

Convicted of aggravated assault, he is now serving a 30-year prison sentence in Boise. I remember lying on the floor thinking, I cant i believe he shot me, says Gephart, a lively woman who flashes a mouthful of braces when she swaps jokes with her customers. i I grew up in a neighborhood where you never I locked the door, never worried about going out at night, she says. 1 Getting shot at the comer store just wasnt a i possibility. It took six hours of surgery to repair an artery in Gepharts right leg and remove metal fragments and two feet of intestines, Customers were astonished when she returned to work six months later and set up a stool behind the counter.

For a long time, I saw blood whenever I looked at my hands, she says, and it took months to work through the pain in my leg. But my job and my customers were important to me. There was no way I was going to let a criminal ruin my life. When Gephart heard on the radio that the Red i Cross was running low on O-negative blood, she knew it was time for a payback. i Id donated once or twice before I was shot, but really never gave it much thought, she says.

Nobody thinks they are going to die. You i always assume youll live to be 90. 1 came within a few pints of proving that isnt so. Gephart has now given back 17 of the 18 units of blood she received, but says she wont stop when she evens the score. Ill definitely continue to donate blood and so should everybody else, says Gephart.

She flashes a silver grin. Hey, you never know when Im going to need it. Blair KooistraThe Spokesman-Review TEA TIME. Asami Maeda, one of 17 exchange Tuesday. The ceremony is taught to young Japanese students visiting North Idaho College from Nagasaki women to instill harmony, reverence, purity and tran-Junior College in Japan, makes Matcha tea green, quillity.

The students, living with host families, have foamy and bitter during a Sado tea ceremony at NIC been learning English and about American culture. Highway crews begin work on traffic trouble spot When traveling to and from Coeur dAlene, she often braves the logging trucks and bumps of Seltice Way to avoid the Highway 41-Seltice intersection. Interstate 90 would be quicker, Salsbury said, if not for that intersection. Certain times of day I just dont use it, Salsbuiy said. She hails the improvements.

Its absolutely imperative that we have (a traffic light) there, Salsbury said. I know its going to be a tax dollar, but its needed. Post Falls Police Lt. Rod Plank agreed. The Highway 41-Seltice interchange was the citys most notorious spot for traffic accidents in 1993, Plank said.

Thirteen accidents happened there last year, almost twice as many as any other spot in the city. No one was killed. Thats been a problem spot for years and years, Plank said. By Adam Lynn Staff writer POST FALLS State road crews are working on improvements to one of the areas most dangerous and frustrating stretches of highway. They began the work on Idaho Highway 41 between Seltice Way and Mullan Avenue this week.

The project includes adding traffic lights where Highway 41 intersects three other streets; Seltice, Mullan and the westbound offramp from Interstate 90. Lanes will be widened and turn lanes added at Seltice, as well. The $1 million project is expected to take about two months, said Tom Baker of the Idaho Transportation Department. Traffic will be delayed at times while the work progresses, Baker said. Its often delayed on the stretch, anyway.

The spot is a headache for both commuters and cops. Maralyn Salsbury has lived on Cedar Street, just east of the intersection, for nearly 17 years. Blair KooistraThe Spokesman-Review Tom Cline tamps down backfill around the footing for one of the new signals,.