Judge sends two Montana logging projects back to the Forest Service
Edvard Pettersson
(CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday found that the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of two large logging projects on federal land in Montana wasn’t up to par and said the projects couldn’t proceed until the shortcomings had been addressed.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen DeSoto issued two orders on cross motions for summary judgment in separate lawsuits brought by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other environmental organizations who claim the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, among other federal statutes, in approving the projects.
One of the rulings pertained to the Gold Butterfly Project in the Bitterroot National Forest and the other to the Round Star Vegetation Management Project on the Flathead National Forest. DeSoto paused implementation of both projects while the issue is remanded.
In both cases, the judge said the errors she identified in the underlying environmental analyses for the projects were limited in scope and didn’t require for the Forest Service’s approval of the projects to be vacated all together. Instead, she said, it might be possible for the agency to resolve the shortcomings with minimal delay and disruption to the projects.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued the federal government in 2024 over the Gold Butterfly logging and burning project, which is in wolverine and grizzly bear habitat and calls for commercially logging of 5,281 acres, including 567 acres of old growth forest, and non-commercial tree-cutting and burning activities on an additional 2,084 acres.
The project is likely to kill whitebark pine trees, the nonprofit claims, a species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Although, the judge wasn’t persuaded by most of the arguments raised by environmental advocates, she agreed with them that a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement was required in light of recent information about the presence of Grizzly bears in the area of the Bitterroot National Forest where the logging is to take place.
A December 2024 supplemental information report by the Forest Service, the judge said, wasn’t sufficient because it had misrepresented some of the conclusions in the agency’s record of decision.
“This is not to say that the court endorses all of plaintiffs’ assertions regarding the need for a supplemental EIS,” DeSoto wrote. “The court merely finds that the SIR contains an obvious inaccuracy that speaks to the heart of the issue.”
The conservationists’ challenge to the Round Star project claimed the logging would destroy the threatened Canada lynx habitat.
This project authorizes logging on 9,151 acres, with 6,324 acres of commercial logging and clearcutting, and bulldozing almost 30 miles of new roads and trails.
Here, the judge said it was unclear whether the project complied with various statutory requirement for the protection of the lynx and whether the environmental analysis took sufficiently in account the cumulative of adjacent logging projects in the area.
Representatives of the U.S. Forest Service and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the rulings.