The high cost of timber litigation
A study published by the University of Montana on May 5 asserts that the Forest Service region containing Montana has the highest rate of litigated timber sales, and is costing the agency and surrounding communities tens of millions of dollars.
The 17-page study, titled “Understanding Costs and Other Impacts of Litigation of Forest Service Projects,” was completed by Bureau of Business and Economic Research professors Todd A. Morgan, the university’s director of forest industry research, and John Baldridge, director of survey research. They used the Spotted Bear River forest management project, on the South Fork, as one of five case studies to estimate the costs of forest project litigation to local communities and agencies forced to defend against the lawsuits.
After a federal judge ruled in favor of the Forest Service on the Spotted Bear River project in March, the plaintiffs did not file an appeal, meaning the harvest will finally proceed as planned. The Swan View Coalition and Friends of the Wild Rockies were the plaintiffs in the case, two local conservation groups with a history of using the courts to stop or shut down projects that they contend fail to adhere to federal environmental regulations, such as those under the Endangered Species Act.
Arlene Montgomery, program director of Friends of the Wild Swan, said on Friday that while she had not yet read the report, is seemed designed to provoke more ill will against the groups.
“[The study] seems like it wants to feed into the rhetoric and frenzy over lawsuits these days. We still feel that neither one of these projects was a good idea,” she said.
“You have to also look at the economic benefits of having the forests, our wildlife and our clean water. It’s millions of dollars that are pumped into the economy of the Flathead,” she said. “People don’t come here to look at clearcuts.”
While the report concedes no economic impact from “loss of timber sale revenue,” for the Spotted Bear River project, it states there were more than $95,000 in costs to the federal agency from the estimated 1,883 hours of work that Flathead National Forest personnel spent defending against the litigation. It states that dealing with the suit consumed more than 25 percent of the forest’s 2013 timber program budget. Region-wide, litigation cost the agency’s timber budget $9.8 million in 2013 and $6.8 million in 2014.
Had the project been canceled altogether, the authors estimated the loss of 136 jobs and more than $10 million, based on the direct and indirect impacts from labor income, resultant spending, tax revenue and other ripple effects.
The study focuses on Forest Service Region 1, which includes Montana, the Idaho Panhandle, North Dakota and a small portion of South Dakota. It states that Region 1 had the highest number of cases in the U.S. from 2008 through 2013, with 73 projects and between 40 and 50 percent of planned timber harvest litigated.
Of those 73 cases, 51 were by environmental groups. Primary plaintiffs included: Alliance for the Wild Rockies, with 17 cases; Native Ecosystems Council, with 16 cases; and the Swan View Coalition, with 4 cases.
It also puts the region’s payments to plaintiff attorneys through the Equal Access to Justice Act at more than $1 million between 2003 and 2013.
“This eye-opening study confirms what we long suspected,” said Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. “Litigation against common-sense timber projects is having far-reaching, damaging impacts on Montana jobs, access to recreation and our environment.”
Quiram Logging owner Floyd Quiran was awarded the first timber sale in the Spotted Bear River project, and expressed relief that the case had been settled. Neither litigant filed an appeal by the April 24 deadline.
“We’ll spend four summers up there, so it would have been a big deal if we hadn’t gotten those sales,” Quiran said.
Speaking of those kinds of consequences, Daines said, “It is unacceptable that mills in Montana have to go far outside of our state to get logs, largely because 40 to 50 percent of the timber sale volume in Region 1 has been encumbered by litigation in recent years.”
Daines said he will continue fighting to protect responsible harvests from what he called “obstructionist tactics.”
But while many criticize environmental groups for costing companies jobs and income, Montgomery said there is an often-ignored positive side to her group’s work over the years.
“There’s this frenzy to malign lawsuits, but they’ve really brought about some important changes to wildlife habitat, specifically on the Flathead, it was a lawsuit that brough about Amendment 19, which is grizzly bear road density and secure corridor protections,” Montgomery said. “There has to be citizen enforcement to move the agencies towards better management. If it takes the courts to do that, it’s not a bad thing.
Quiram disagreed.
“There’s a lot of reasons why people change how they do business,” he said, citing advances in logging technology as a major driver behind better forest management. “I think it’s a desire on our part to do better, and we are doing better work, I just don’t think it’s being recognized.”
Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com