Groups ask judge to stop logging project in Montana griz, lynx habitat
Monique Merrill
(CN) — A 15-year logging project set to construct over 50 miles of new roads and log over 16,000 acres within the Custer-Gallatin National Forest outside Yellowstone National Park will threaten important lynx and grizzly bear habitat and was approved without necessary details to prove otherwise, conservation groups argued before a federal judge in Montana on Tuesday morning.
To the conservation groups challenging the project, the case boils down to two questions: “Can the Forest Service demonstrate compliance with lynx in grizzly bear standards without knowing basic details of the project? And, can the Fish and Wildlife Service provide an adequate analysis of the effects of the project on grizzly bears without knowing the basic details of the project?”
“The answer to both of those questions is no,” Kristine Akland, representing the Center for Biological Diversity and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen DeSoto.
The South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment Project is slated for a region of Montana’s Greater Yellowstone ecosystem comprised of old-growth trees that sequester carbon and provide habitat to several wildlife species. The Forest Service approved the project in 2022, concluding that neither the Canada lynx nor grizzly bear populations would be jeopardized.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued the Forest Service and the government over the logging plan in September 2023. In December, three more conservation groups — Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council and Wildearth Guardians — filed a separate suit challenging the same action. The court merged the cases and allowed Sun Mountain Lumber to intervene as a defendant.
Before DeSoto, the groups argued that the federal defendants violated multiple environmental protection laws in approving the project.
For starters, the Forest Service is required under the National Forest Management Act to comply with forest plan standards — something the groups say was bypassed for this project.
“ The court cannot simply take defendants' word that the project complies with the standard,” Akland argued. “ Here, the Forest Service declines to identify or disclose the location and the timing and the scope of logging units and road building.”
Without those details, the public can’t make sure the project is in compliance with species protection standards. Plus, the Forest Service hasn’t determined exactly where roads will be constructed.
“ When we're talking about secure habitat, it's the location of the roads that matter,” Akland said.
The grizzly bear secure habitat standard limits the total acreage of secure habitat that can be temporarily reduced for a project to 1% of the acreage of the largest subunit within a bear management unit. Secure habitat is land more than 500 meters from a road and greater than or equal to 10 acres.
“ The key question isn't the number of roads, the number of miles of roads, it's the location,” Akland said. “And without knowing the location, there's no way that the Forest Service can know how much secure habitat this project reduces.”
The groups also argued that the project violates the four-year standard within the forest plan, which limits the time a project can reduce secure habitat below baseline to four consecutive years. The standard also requires temporary roads to be closed after three years and for those roads to be decommissioned and habitat restored after one year of closure. The Forest Service proposed to implement the project in stages, which the groups argued was only to sidestep the standard and reset the clock on road use.
“ If you allow the Forest Service to implement South Plateau under four or five timber sales and for each timber sale to allow a four-year reduction in temporary habitat, it kind of renders the whole standard meaningless,” argued Matthew Bishop, an attorney representing the Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council and Wildearth Guardians.
The Forest Service argues that the project is necessary to increase resilience to insects and disease as well as contribute to sustained-yield timber production in an area it says is susceptible to fire and other natural disturbances due to its homogeneity.
Reade Wilson, Department of Justice attorney representing the federal defendants, turned the court's attention to a series of maps illustrating the areas identified for treatment.
“The environmental assessment assumes that every acre is cut and that every road, mile of road is built and on the ground at the same time. But less intensive treatments may occur,” Wilson said.
“That’s sort of the rub, right? Because even if all the roads are built, if you don't know where they are, you don't know how they factor into the 1% and some of those other issues that have come up here today,” DeSoto interjected, asking the attorney to address the point.
Wilson said responded that the exact locations may change based on conversations with contractors and engineers, something that is fairly standard. Additionally, she argued that the Forest Service took an overly conservative approach by measuring impact assuming all roads would be on the ground at the same time.
“This conservative approach is sufficient for both informed public participation and informed decision making underneath them,” Wilson said.
Wilson also argued that the project has design features that require the Forest Service to complete a resource checklist before implementing a project treatment to make sure it complies with the forest plan.
“The key point is that the design features are not mitigation measures; they are part of the decision,” Wilson said.
Sun Mountain Lumber, the purchaser of one of the three timber sales associated with implementing the project, backed up the Forest Service.
“If the conditions on the ground are in conflict with the project design features, they will be dropped. They will not be implemented,” Sarah Ghafouri, an attorney representing the lumber company, told the court.
The Forest Service awarded the sale to the company in September 2023, but issued a suspension order halting work after the conservation groups challenged the project in court.
Ghafouri argued that the Forest Service is entitled to deference to the interpretation of its own forest plan.
The conservation groups, in response, argued that the design features are in fact mitigation measures and are uncertain ones at that, and asked the court to block the project from proceeding.
DeSoto indicated she would try to issue her findings and recommendations quickly.