Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), stating the amount of logging in Montana’s Custer-Gallatin National Forest exceeds the limitations of the forest plan and destroys habitat for grizzly bears and the Canada lynx.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Council on Wildlife and Fish filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Montana in Missoula. The groups assert USFS will not know the scope or timing of the logging project known as the South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment project without public comment.
USFS completed an environmental assessment and concluded there was no need to complete an environmental impact statement as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), due to insignificant impacts. The greens assert the amount of clearcutting and road-building exceeds the Custer Gallatin National Forest Plan.
Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said in a statement that USFS’ logging is a mockery of President Joe Biden’s climate pledge and the agency failed to disclose the impacts of climate change, violating NEPA.
“The bottom line is Biden’s climate pledges are meaningless unless his Forest Service ceases its ever-increasing and illegal logging,” Garrity said. “When the Forest Service continues to break the law to ‘get the cut out’ for the timber industry, the courts are the only recourse to protect the National Forests that are the world’s best carbon sinks.”
Project
According to the final decision notice in August 2023, the South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment project encompasses 36,098 acres south and west of the town of West Yellowstone, with a majority within the wildland-urban interface.
The project will occur over 15 years and treat approximately 16,462 acres. The project includes over 5,000 acres of clearcutting, 6,500 acres of commercial thinning, 2,500 acres of noncommercial thinning and 1,800 acres of additional fuels treatments. About 57 miles of temporary road would be built to facilitate the project.
USFS states that 91% of the treatment area is forested, with lodgepole pine as the dominant tree species. It is estimated that 80% of the pine is rated as highly susceptible to mountain pine beetles and 97% likely to experience a severe outbreak. An estimated 83 million board feet of lumber would be produced.
Background
USFS first identified the need for this project in the 1987 Gallatin Forest Plan and listed the project in the Schedule of Proposed Actions in January 2020. The agency began accepting public comments in August 2020, and some of the issues raised were concerns over grizzly bear and elk habitat security, road and wildlife conflicts, climate change and the NEPA process.
Environmental groups opposed the project in April 2021, raising the same issues as in the lawsuit, and said the project would jeopardize the habitat for grizzly bears and lynx. In May 2021, USFS said it would reanalyze the project until the 2022 Land Management Plan and a revised environmental assessment were prepared.
A public comment period was reopened in October 2022 with many of the same concerns, including climate change, old-growth forests and active versus passive management. An updated environmental assessment was prepared to include these changes, and it was published along with a draft decision notice and finding of no significant impact on March 15, 2023.
In the final decision, Nicholas Mustoe, acting district ranger of Hebgen Lake Ranger District, said, “Based on effects analyses conducted for this project, I have determined that the effects likely to result from project activities do not rise to the level of significance.”
Mustoe also said he considered the biological opinion of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which found the project would likely not jeopardize the continued existence of grizzly bears, Canada lynx and wolverines under the Endangered Species Act.
“This clearcutting project is a direct threat to grizzly bears, lynx and the entire Yellowstone ecosystem,” said Kristine Akland, Northern Rockies director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We know our continued existence relies in part on preserving our planet’s remaining forests and protecting threatened species. This project is completely out of step with both those urgent needs. We’re committed to stopping this devastating project before one tree is cut.”
The groups are asking the judge to declare the project violates the law and to either vacate the decision or enjoin the implementation of the project. — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
