Judge backs forest on old-growth plans

A federal judge has upheld the Flathead National Forest on all counts in a lawsuit that challenged an old-growth forest management project that was planned more than five years ago.

Forest officials said Tuesday's ruling from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula was highly significant not just because it upheld the Meadow-Smith project in the Swan Valley.

It also validated Amendment 21 to the Flathead Forest Plan, which established a policy for managing old-growth across the entire forest.

"The defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted on all claims," Molloy said in his ruling on the lawsuit filed by the environmental group Friends of the Wild Swan.

"For this forest, this is certainly the oldest litigation we have," said Joe Krueger, the Flathead Forest's litigation coordinator.

"The ruling validates the good that the forest does … and it demonstrates that we are perfectly capable of doing projects that comply with the law."

The ruling clears the way for work to begin as early as next summer on Meadow-Smith, a project that was first developed and approved in 2000.

It involves promoting open stands of large ponderosa pine and larch, mainly by removing an understory of fir, followed by prescribed burning over the project area. It's considered a restoration project because fire historically played a role in clearing understory brush and trees while leaving the larger, fire-resistant ponderosas and larch.

It is expected to yield roughly 5 million board feet of timber, mostly off 450 acres of old-growth forest.

Krueger said Molloy's ruling was significant because it touched on a legal issue that national forests across the country are dealing with - claims challenging the Forest Service methods of measuring the viability of a species through the availability and quality of habitat they tend to use, rather than doing actual population surveys.

Molloy's ruling adhered to a 1996 Kootenai National Forest case in which the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported the "habitat as a proxy" approach for species viability.

In the Meadow-Smith case, Friends of the Wild Swan alleged that the Flathead Forest had wrongfully chosen old growth "indicator species" in its forest plan amendment; that it inadequately considered impacts on old-growth habitat; and that it failed to adequately consider cumulative effects.

"Plaintiff's complaint that the Service has not addressed the effects of the Meadow Smith Project on old growth species is flatly contradicted by the administrative record," Judge Molloy wrote.

Friends of the Wild Swan pinned many of its claims on a 1988 order from the chief of the Forest Service that required the Flathead Forest to adopt the pileated woodpecker, pine marten and northern goshawk as old-growth indicator species and maintain adequate habitat for those species.

Amendment 21, adopted by the forest in 1999, set a new policy for old growth across the Flathead, establishing 10 new indicator species that no longer included pileated woodpecker, pine marten or northern goshawk.

Molloy ruled that Amendment 21 supersedes previous forest plan standards and the 1988 order from the chief.

"The argument assumes that when an agency head issues a management directive like the one at issue here, the universe of reasonable options for that agency is limited to one," the judge commented on the plaintiff's argument.

Friends of the Wild Swan also alleged that the Flathead Forest failed to adequately analyze the "cumulative effects of logging and development on adjacent state and private lands, including lands owned by Plum Creek Timber Co."

But Molloy found the Forest Service's analysis was adequate.

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