Judge rejects challenge to 9 Kootenai projects

The Daily Inter Lake

A lawsuit challenging nine forest-management projects on the Kootenai National Forest has been denied by a federal judge in Missoula.

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy rejected a series of claims brought by the Missoula-based WildWest Institute, formerly known as the Ecology Center.

The lawsuit challenged six projects approved in 2004: the Bristow Area Restoration, the Fortine, the West Troy, the Pipestone Timber Sale and Restoration, the Lower Big Creek, and the South McSwede Timber Sale and Restoration projects. It also challenged several projects that were planned for approval in 2005, including Cow Creek, Alder Creek and the McSuttan, which was approved.

"For the forest, it was a very significant ruling, because the lawsuit encompassed so many of our projects," said John Gubel, the forest's environmental coordinator. "It had a large share our of program for the next few years."

Gubel said the forest estimated that the projects would collectively yield about 76 million board-feet of timber during a 2-3 year period.

He said the lawsuit was unusual, because most litigation is geared toward a single project rather than many.

"The crux of Plaintiff's argument is that flawed, forestwide management practices in the [Kootenai National Forest] render the Forest Service's approval of the nine challenged projects unlawful," Molloy said in his Nov. 21 ruling. "Specifically, Plaintiff challenges management practices relating to the use of forest-plan amendments, water quality and aquatic habitat, old growth, soil productivity, and noxious weeds."

Molloy then shot down the WildWest Institute's arguments, one after another, throughout the 27-page ruling.

For starters, the judge rejected claims that the Kootenai forest did not adequately consider a "laundry list of issues" in planning the nine projects.

The WildWest Institute argued, for example, that the projects unlawfully required excessive amendments to the Kootenai's long-range forest plan. The judge cited a provision in the forest plan that allows for "variances" to forest-plan standards.

"Plaintiff does not explain how the site-specific amendments adopted for the challenged projects fail to satisfy the Forest Plan's requirements for amendments," Molloy wrote, later adding that the amendments are "not arbitrary and capricious."

The Flathead National Forest is defending similar "site-specific amendments" in separate litigation that is currently before Molloy.

Molloy rejected arguments related to old-growth standards on the forest that had been raised in previous litigation brought by the Ecology Center.

"None of the challenged projects appear to involve logging of … old growth," Molloy said.

But the Institute, he said, focused on challenging the forest's method for calculating and inventorying old growth, and that position is "without merit."

The Institute argued that the Forest Plan required minimum patches of 50 acres for old growth, but Molloy cited the forest plan and concluded that "such a practice is merely recommended when possible."

Gubel said the Institute had sought to stop the projects in their tracks, but Molloy never took action on that request.

"So the projects that were active last summer went ahead," Gubel said. "We were very pleased with the ruling because we felt we had good projects with good [National Environmental Policy Act] documentation and we thought we had a good products."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.