Court reverses forest road ruling

Bears come first, 9th Circuit rules

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a court ruling that allowed the Flathead National Forest to avoid strict adherence to road management standards in the area burned by the 2001 Moose Fire.

In a five-page ruling issued Tuesday, the appellate court found that U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy erred in applying his own standard for determining when land uses compete with the habitat needs of grizzly bears, a threatened species.

The court order calls for the Forest Service to "establish and apply a standard when land use values 'compete' with grizzly bears' needs within the meaning of the forest plan."

In addition to salvage logging, the Moose Post Fire Project involved road management provisions that mostly called for forest roads to be closed or obliterated to meet road density standards adopted in 1995 under Forest Plan Amendment 19.

But the post-fire project included a 'site-specific amendment" that allowed the Forest Service to deviate from those road density standards.

Forest Road 316 was allowed to remain open and nearly a dozen culverts were retained under other roads that were supposed to be closed by culvert removal.

The culverts were retained to allow for continued snowmobiling access under the terms of a settlement agreement reached in separate litigation over snowmobile access.

Environmental groups including Friends of the Wild Swan, the Swan View Coalition, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Wildlands CPR sued in 2003, challenging the project's road management plans. Molloy ruled in favor of the Forest Service in 2006.

"The Flathead was wrong when it chose motorized recreation over grizzly bears," said Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan. "Finally, they must follow their own forest plan standards and the law."

Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition, added that "This ruling means you can't promise wildlife one thing in your forest plan, then arbitrarily take it away when it's time to go logging and motoring."

Hammer and Montgomery assert that the ruling means the Flathead Forest must redo travel management portions of its Moose project to bring it into compliance with the forest's road density standards.

But that may not be the case, said Joe Krueger, environmental coordinator for the Flathead Forest.

"We are definitely not clear what it means and how to proceed from here. We'll be sitting down with our attorneys," said Krueger, who believes the appellate court ruling appears to be calling for more definition in the forest plan.

"It seems like they are asking us to go back and develop a forest plan standard that describes what it means when land uses compete with the needs of grizzly bears," he said.

Krueger noted that the project's road management provisions led to the decommissioning of 56 miles of forest roads.

"Our analysis said grizzly bears will be better off after this project and they are," he said.

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