Conservationists win Clearwater Forest lawsuit
July 21, 2000
Contacts: Laird Lucas, Land and Water Fund 208-342-7024 Jeff Juel, The Ecology Center 406-728-5733 Kristin Ruether, Friends of the Clearwater 208-882-9755 Chuck Pezeshki, Clearwater Biodiversity Project 208-883-3001 Larry McLaud, Idaho Conservation League 208-882-1010
MISSOULA - A coalition of Idaho and Montana conservation groups won a major federal court victory Friday over management of Idaho's Clearwater National Forest.
Federal Magistrate Leif B. Erickson stopped the planned logging for the Fish Bate project on the North Fork Clearwater River, ruling the Clearwater National Forest has not met its standard for old growth forest preservation. In his 70 page ruling, he also found the Forest's reliance on Best Management Practices to be arbitrary and capricious as an unproven means of preventing landslides.
"These rulings on old growth and Best Management Practices go far beyond Fish Bate and go to the very root of how they are managing the forest," said Laird Lucas of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, which represented the conservation groups. "The Clearwater forest is going to have to re-evaluate all of its proposed timber sales, because of the ruling on Best Management Practices," Lucas added.
"Supervisor Jim Caswell has continued in the footsteps of his predecessors, attempting to fool the public and the courts with his version of phantom forests. Fortunately, the judge didn't buy the Forest Service's counterfeit old growth inventory," said Chuck Pezeshki of the Clearwater Biodiversity Project.
The Fish Bate project planned to cut 500 acres of red cedar old growth at lower elevations near the North Fork Clearwater River. The project has been in planning for almost a decade and conservationists have fought it because of potential damage to fishing and water quality, as well as old growth habitat.
"This timber sale on the steep banks of the North Fork has been one of the most outrageous projects that Supervisor Caswell has pushed during his stay on the Clearwater," said Jeff Juel of The Ecology Center. "What does it take for the Forest Service to realize that people love these beautiful old-growth cedars?"
"This timber sale on the steep slopes above the North Fork is in a sensitive area prone to landslides, as we witnessed in 1996 and 1997," said Larry McLaud, of the Idaho Conservation League in Moscow.
Earlier in the week, the Forest Service Region 1 Office rejected the Clearwater Forest's plans for logging in the North Lochsa Face project after an appeal by the same conservation coalition. That sale was also reversed in part because of the project's unacceptable risk of causing sediment to be eroded into the waterways.
"The North Fork of the Clearwater is a centerpiece of our proposed Lewis and Clark National Historic Monument and Preserve," said Kristin Ruether of Friends of the Clearwater. "With this week's two decisions, we hope that the Clearwater National Forest will finally alter its destructive course and chart a new direction towards true restoration."
The conservation groups established the inadequacies of the Forest's old growth assessment using aerial photography and mapping analysis from Conservation Geography, a Boise-based, non-profit scientific organization.
"The Clearwater forest is not meeting its standard to maintain 10 percent of the forest in old growth habitats and my analysis shows they don't even know it or they are denying it," said Amy Haak, president of Conservation Geography.
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-- John McCarthy conservation director Idaho Conservation League Box 844 Boise, ID 83701 208 345 6942 ext 14 208 344 0344 fax http://www.wildidaho.org
My comment: Clearwater National Forest Supervisor, Jim Caswell used to be on the Targhee National Forest. He was interested only in timber. . . . Ralph Maughan