Ruling clarifies salvage-logging restrictions
Judge says temporary order applied only to 'core' grizzly habitat
A federal judge has clarified a temporary order restricting salvage logging on Flathead National Forest lands in a fashion that will increase the acreage where logging can proceed.
After a brief hearing Friday morning, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy made it clear that a temporary restraining order issued during late June applies specifically to forest lands that fall within defined "core" habitat for grizzly bears.
The June order left Forest Service officials with the impression that logging was banned for the summer in entire timber sale units that contained core habitat, regardless whether core habitat accounted for just a fraction of a unit.
The judge wrote that "core habitat serves a special purpose within the legal and ecological schemes to protect the grizzly bears, and therefore activity in those units shall be halted until full hearing of those issues."
Summer logging was planned on about 1,894 acres that includes about 838 acres outside delineated core habitat. Some sale units bore the brunt of the order. One timber sale unit, for instance, had nine acres within core habitat and 108 acres outside core habitat.
Rob Carlin, the Flathead forest's lead planner, said the clarification issued Friday by Molloy cleared up that ambiguity.
"So basically, we've got about 55 million board-feet that we will be able to get to," Carlin said. That volume accounts for roughly 80 percent of the total volume of the Robert-Wedge Post-Fire Project in the North Fork Flathead drainage, and the West Side Reservoir Post-Fire Project on the Swan Range, west of Hungry Horse Reservoir.
Flathead Forest Supervisor Cathy Barbouletos considers the clarification a victory within the larger context of a lawsuit that challenges both post-fire projects. She said the decision essentially frees up logging on about 5,000 acres.
"I think the victory is that we now have about 5,000 acres that we know we can get to work removing timber from," she said.
Carlin said the judge's clarification came after hearing from intervenors in the case - mostly entities representing mills and logging contractors.
"The intervenors who are representing the timber industry said that they would voluntarily refrain from logging activity within about 1,000 acres that falls within core security habitat until the full case is heard before the court," Carlin said.
The full case includes multiple claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Flathead National Forest broke the law in approving the post-fire projects.
Those claims largely are focused on six "site specific" amendments to the Flathead Forest Plan that allowed the Forest Service to deviate from formulaic road-density standards aimed at improving grizzly bear habitat security. The plaintiffs say the Forest Service did not propose to remove enough forest roads to meet the standards in six areas.
But Flathead forest officials contend that the language in the forest plan gives them the legal flexibility to deviate from the standards in certain circumstances.
Friday's hearing mostly involved attorneys representing the Forest Service and groups that filed the lawsuit, Friends of the Wild Swan and the Swan View Coalition.
The only witness testimony, Carlin said, came from Ron Buentemeier, logging manager at the Stoltze lumber mill in Columbia Falls.
Buentemeier presented information about potential economic effects from curtailed logging in the sale areas. And he presented information about existing conditions within the burned areas.
"The point he was making is that the present condition of the units is not preferable for grizzly bear feeding," Carlin said.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.