Federal judge halts timber sale over outdated steelhead data

LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — A large timber sale in north-central Idaho has been put on hold because a federal judge says the agencies that approved the deal failed to consider the latest information on steelhead numbers.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Forest Service and National Marine Fisheries Service didn't take into account new data that showed the numbers of threatened steelhead were at a 25-year-low when they approved the timber sale in parts of the Upper Lolo, Musselshell, Middle Lolo and Eldorado creek watersheds, The Lewiston Tribune reported.

The Lolo Insect and Disease project includes clear-cut-like harvest practices and would require the construction of 13 miles of temporary roads. It is expected to produce 44 million board feet of timber and help sustain as many as 963 jobs.

Opponents said it would also send sediment into streams in the area, harming threatened wild steelhead that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The federal fisheries service issued a biological opinion that said the project was likely to harm the steelhead that spawn in the streams, but that it wouldn't jeopardize the existence of the population nor adversely affect critical habitat.

The Moscow-based Friends of the Clearwater and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies of Missoula, Montana, sued the two agencies in July 2020. They argued the Forest Service and fisheries service relied on steelhead numbers from 2011 to 2015, when counts of wild Snake River B-run steelhead reached between 23,000 to 44,000, a 30-year high. But the agencies declined to reconsider their decision in the face of new data that became available in the fall of 2019 showing wild fish numbers dropped to just 8,128, a 25-year low.

The fisheries service argued it had reviewed the new data in relation to the timber project and that the biological opinion already factored in that steelhead were a "high risk" population and the declining numbers didn't change that conclusion.

The judge rejected the fisheries service arguments, writing that "the fact that the Lolo Creek population was already declining and at high risk does not provide a satisfactory explanation for why Defendants did not reinitiate consultation based on the new data that there was a recent dramatic drop in steelhead returns."

Winmill ruled in favor of the Forest Service on several other claims made by the environmental groups. But he issued a stay on the project and ordered a new biological opinion.

Gary Macfarlane, ecosystem defense director of Friends of the Clearwater, said logging continues to threaten the fish and its effects should be taken seriously by land and fish managers.

"As recent fish surveys confirm, steelhead populations have declined significantly over the past few years as the Lolo Creek watershed experienced heavy logging," Macfarlane said. "Alarmingly, the decline of steelhead in this watershed appears to be even greater than elsewhere in the Snake River Basin."

Forest Service spokesman Hank Heusinkveld said agency officials are still studying Winmill's ruling and could not immediately comment.