Bitterroot Forest stops project for endangered species analysis
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) A 2-year-old forestry project is on hold while the Bitterroot National Forest checks to see whether the project activities would affect threatened species.
Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Matthew D. Anderson and Benjamin Conard of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent letters last week to four environmental organizations saying the agencies were addressing issues raised by the organizations related to the Eastside Project so the organizations shouldn’t sue. The organizations include Center for Biological Diversity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, WildEarth Guardians and Friends of the Bitterroot.
In December 2022, the Bitterroot National Forest issued a final decision on its Eastside Forest and Habitat Improvement Project, which proposed a mix of prescribed burns and noncommercial thinning on more than 470,000 acres of the Sapphire Mountains extending from east of Stevensville south to Conner. The project was supposed to last approximately 20 years. The work was to be done in cooperation with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
Two years went by. Then this past January, the four organizations sent the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day notice of intent to sue. The groups said the two agencies hadn’t consulted on how the project would affect threatened bull trout, bull trout habitat or grizzly bears, and they hadn’t looked at possible effects on wolverine.
The public has five or six years after a final decision to object to a project. Mike Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies said the groups would have acted sooner, but they’ve been so busy challenging Forest Service projects, especially after the first Trump administration, that none of their attorneys had time to do it until this year.
The Current tried to ask Bitterroot National Forest spokesman Tod McKay if any work occurred on the project during the intervening two years. But an email response said McKay is out of the office until March 18.
The March 7 letter of response said the Bitterroot Forest had reinitiated consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service on Aug. 14, 2024, “due to new information and updates to the proposed action.” The new information might have included the August 2022 sightings of two young grizzly bears in the Sapphire Mountains east of Florence.
On Feb. 2, the Bitterroot Forest submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service an updated Biological Assessment for grizzly bears in the project area which looked at specific project actions including the agency’s intention to increase helicopter flights over the area.
The following day, the Bitterroot Forest submitted an Biological Assessment for the wolverine. The Forest Service hadn't written one before because the wolverine didn’t receive federal protection until November 2023, after the project was approved. Then on March 7, the Bitterroot Forest submitted an Biological Assessment for bull trout and its habitat.
“Therefore, since reinitiation has begun and consultation is ongoing on the effects of the updated proposed action, all previous consultation processes that have occurred related to the Eastside Forest and Habitat Improvement Project will be superseded. Accordingly, your claims of ESA violations relating to the original consultation are moot. The Forest does not intend to implement the project until the reinitiated consultation is complete,” the letter said.
The four organizations considered the agencies’ actions a win.
“Citizens shouldn't have to force the Forest Service to follow the law, but we are happy that the agency agreed to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service on the impact of this huge project on grizzlies, bull trout and wolverines, as the Endangered Species Act requires,” said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.