Judge halts Kootenai logging projects
LIBBY, Mont. - Federal District Court Judge Donald Molloy halted three Kootenai National Forest logging projects last week after ruling that the U.S. Forest Service failed to properly evaluate how the work would affect endangered grizzly bears.
Molloy ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, on several points, stating last week in his 69-page opinion that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not discussing all pertinent details concerning how the projects would likely impact bears.
"An agency must provide support for its choice of analysis area and must show that it considered the relevant factors," Molloy's opinion read. "The Forest Service did not provide any such support for its process here."
The three timber sale projects, located in the Three Rivers, Libby and Cabinet ranger districts, also aimed to reduce wildfire fuels and improve wildlife habitat. Work was scheduled to start this summer.
"With the projects that are enjoined, we are looking at contacting companies that bought the projects and telling them that we're going to have to do more work on those projects," KNF Supervisor Paul Bradford said Friday. "Meanwhile, they can't start work."
Michael Garrity, executive director of Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said that the projects are not worth the amount of grizzly bear habitat that would be lost.
"This is a relatively small area and losing that much habitat to road-building and logging activities would definitely displace the bears from thousands of acres," Garrity said. "The federal government's own data show the grizzlies need more secure habitat, not less, or this population of bears is going to vanish."
Molloy ruled that the Forest Service failed to explain why it analyzed the cumulative effects the projects would have on bears on a bear management unit level instead of a forest-wide level.
The Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone is divided into bear management units, which are about the size of a female grizzly's home range.
Molloy also determined that the Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the federal Endangered Species Act by not explaining how they concluded that helicopter logging within the recovery zone would not adversely affect bears.