oooh, oooh, domestic terrorism, squirt squirt July 1, 2001 S.U.V.'s, Golf, Even Peas Join Eco-Vandals' Hit List By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK EATTLE, June 30 — The fire at Joe Romania Chevrolet in Eugene, Ore., started just before 2:45 one morning in the spring. Nearly 30 Chevrolet Suburbans and Tahoes were destroyed in the blaze, the second time in nine months that vehicles in the dealership's sport-utility lot had been set afire. The fire at Ray A. Schoppert Logging Inc., in Eagle Creek, Ore., also occurred between 2 and 3 a.m. This one, on June 1, near the site of a disputed timber sale in a federal forest, burned three logging trucks. Sometime in the night of June 10, someone broke into a research farm owned by Seminis Inc., near Twin Falls, Idaho, and ripped out hundreds of genetically altered pea plants. These incidents share more than the fact that none has resulted in an arrest. All three appear to be part of what federal authorities describe as a growing pattern of eco-sabotage, or vandalism, that its anonymous perpetrators claim to have carried out in defense of the environment. Many of these attacks, which the authorities say are especially prevalent here in the Pacific Northwest, are relatively small-scale and fail to attract much attention. Many go unreported, for the companies involved are often reluctant to generate publicity that might make them a target all over again. But even if less noticed than major acts of eco-sabotage like the recent fire at a University of Washington genetics research laboratory, the vandalism has quietly reshaped life for many small businesses, forcing a need for safety measures that would have once been unthinkable. "We've had to beef up security so it looks like a prison around our greenhouses," said Crystal Fricker, president of Pure-Seed Testing Company in Canby, Ore., which grows all kinds of grass seed. The company installed a chain-link fence with razor wire, motion sensors and an alarm system after vandals broke into greenhouses on its 110-acre property last June. The intruders destroyed several research projects, stomped on the grass, spray-painted slogans like "Nature bites back" and left behind golf balls marked with the letter A, the international anarchists' symbol. Pure-Seed was apparently singled out because of its experiments with a genetically modified form of grass that could be used for putting greens on golf courses. A few days after the incident, an e- mail message from a sender identifying itself as the Anarchist Golfing Association claimed responsibility for the vandalism, which caused roughly $500,000 in damage. "Grass, like industrial culture, is invasive and permeates every aspect of our lives," the message said. "While the golf trade journals claim that `golf courses provide suitable habitat for wildlife,' we see them as a destroyer of all things wild." <snip> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/01/national/01ECO.html?pagewanted=all