Six Iowa State students were among about 40 protesters in front of Menards in Des Moines Tuesday who were fighting the sale of old-growth wood.

Rachel Hein, sophomore in art and graphic design and member of the Student Environmental Council, was one of the 16 protesters who were arrested.

Sgt. Jim Weir of the Polk County Jail said Hein was one of the seven females brought there. She was charged with criminal trespass and failure to disperse. Hein posted bail at 7:56 Tuesday evening.

The protest was organized by Iowa STEP (Iowa Students Towards Environmental Protection) as a local protest against Menards for the national nonprofit environmental group Rainforest Action Network.

The Rainforest Action Network is campaigning against retailers of old-growth wood, which is wood from forests that hasn’t been logged before. Its Web site listed Homebase, 84 Lumber, Wickes, Payless, Cashways and Menards as targets of protests.

Kelly Wilkening, junior in computer science and co-president of the SEC, said most of the students were protesting peacefully on the street in front of Menards.

“We were handing out flyers to customers,” Wilkening said.

Wilkening said the protesters were there at 8:30 a.m. and left at noon when police started making arrests. “I’ve never been to anything that dramatic,” she said.

Dawn Sands, Menards national spokesperson, said that headquarters knew the students were at the location in Des Moines.

“This is a complex issue,” Sands said. “We have talked with national environmental organizations and reassured them that we don’t sell old-growth wood. I’m perplexed that students in Iowa think that our stores sell old-growth wood.”

Sarah Kogel-Smucker, junior in philosophy at Grinnell College Iowa STEP spokesperson for the event, said Menards officials’ claims that their stores do not carry old-growth wood is a “blatant lie.”

“I can point out examples in their store aisles,” she said.

Some of the products Kogel-Smucker mentioned included rakes made of Luan from the forests of Malaysia, Thailand and South East Asia, decking wood from the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada and paint brush handles made from Ramin from Indonesia.

Wilkening said four Grinnell College students used bike locks to lock themselves together. She drove the van that dropped off the group in front of the store.

“We weren’t planning to get arrested. We weren’t even close to the people locking down,” Wilkening said. “The point of the protest was to make Menards think about what they are doing. I don’t understand why the police arrested all these people.”

Kogel-Smucker said the seven female protesters arrested were sent to the Polk County Jail and the nine males were sent to the Des Moines city jail. Sgt. Jeff Edwards of the Des Moines Police Department confirmed that they brought in nine males involved with the protest with charges ranging from criminal trespass to failure to disperse to criminal mischief in the fifth degree.