Green Scare Indictment comes to Bay Area: Berkeley resident indicted

Another Person Indicted in "Green Scare" in Seattle
author: concerned citizen
Briana Waters, 30, is the 14th person to be charged in Oregon and Washington with conspiracy to commit a series of ecoterrorist attacks in the West in recent years.
Woman indicted in arson that destroyed UW horticulture center

The Associated Press

SEATTLE - A federal grand jury has indicted a Berkeley, Calif., woman in an arson that destroyed a horticulture center at the University of Washington five years ago.
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Briana Waters, 30, is the 14th person to be charged in Oregon and Washington with conspiracy to commit a series of ecoterrorist attacks in the West in recent years.

In a two-count indictment returned March 15, Waters was charged with arson and using or carrying a destructive device during a violent crime.

If convicted, she would face at least 35 years in prison.

"This is just one step as we attempt to bring to justice those responsible for the UW Urban Horticulture fire," John McKay, U.S. attorney for the western district of Washington, said in a statement.

"As we move toward the five-year anniversary of that devastating blaze, I applaud the investigators who have worked so doggedly and diligently to put the pieces of the puzzle together."

Waters was to appear for arraignment Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The UW fire, one of the Northwest's most notorious acts of ecoterrorism, was set early on May 21, 2001. The same day, about 110 miles away in Clatskanie, Ore., fire ripped through buildings and vehicles at the Jefferson Poplar Farm, causing more than $1 million in damage.

The Earth Liberation Front, a shadowy collection of environmental activists, claimed responsibility for both fires, which caused no injuries.

The horticulture center, which was rebuilt at a cost of several million dollars, had done work on fast-growing hybrid poplars in hopes of limiting the amount of natural forests that timber companies log.

ELF said in a statement five days after the fire that the poplars pose "an ecological nightmare" for the diversity of native forests.

A federal grand jury in Eugene, Ore., has charged 13 other people in arson attacks: Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, 28; Daniel Gerard McGowan, 31; Kevin M. Tubbs, 37; Sarah Kendall Harvey, 29; Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, 28; Nathan Fraser Block, 25; Joyanna L. Zacher, 28; Joseph Dibee, 38; Jonathan Mark Christopher Paul, 40; Rebecca Rubin, 32; Suzanne Savoie, 28; and Darren Todd Thurston, 34.

William C. Rodgers, 40, of Prescott, Ariz., was indicted in Seattle in connection with the case, but committed suicide Dec. 22 while being held in the Coconino County Jail in Prescott.