Judge halts Forest Service project near Yellowstone, citing impacts to grizzlies, lynx

A federal judge has halted a U.S. Forest Service logging project, pitched as a wildfire risk reduction effort, across 40,000 acres north of Yellowstone National Park, citing possible impacts to endangered species including grizzly bears and Canada lynx.

In a 46-page order issued last week, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy faulted the U.S. Forest Service for failing to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Endangered Species Act.

“This is an important win for grizzly bears and grizzly bear recovery in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” Matthew Bishop, an attorney with Western Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit law firm, wrote in a statement on Dec. 11. Bishop represented six environmental groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Council on Wildlife and Fish, Gallatin Wildlife Association and Native Ecosystems Council — in the litigation.

The Forest Service declined to comment on the ruling, citing its policy of refraining from discussing litigation. A representative from Sun Mountain Lumber Company, which intervened in the lawsuit to back the Forest Service’s position and secure a lumber supply for its sawmills, said he was “really disappointed” by the decision. 

The now-thwarted South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment Project called for timber companies to clear-cut 5,551 acres and commercially thin 6,593 acres of trees in southwest Montana. The 40,000-acre affected area is dominated by lodgepole pine, a type of conifer that grows tightly together and is susceptible to die-offs due to mountain pine beetle infestations. 

The Forest Service described the project as an attempt to improve forest health, reduce fire risk, “increase landscape resilience to insects and disease, treat hazardous fuels, and contribute to a sustained yield of timber products.” It was expected to produce 83 million board feet of lumber over a 15-year period using clear-cuts and commercial thinning, which involves selectively removing a portion of a parcel’s trees. The timber harvest would have required the construction of new roads inside the project area boundary, which is bordered by Yellowstone National Park to the east, U.S. Highway 20 to the north and the Montana-Idaho border to the west and south. 

The lawsuit dates back to September 2023, when the Center for Biological Diversity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Council on Wildlife and Fish challenged the Custer Gallatin National Forest’s decision to move forward with South Plateau. In addition to their endangered species concerns, the environmental groups argued that the proposal to use logging and intentional fire to reduce fuels for wildfires had public participation shortcomings. They maintained that the Forest Service subverted the public’s ability to weigh in on its decision-making by only indicating where, across 16,000 acres of the forest, the agency would cut down trees and build roads after the project had been authorized. Three months later, Gallatin Wildlife Association, WildEarth Guardians and Native Ecosystems Council filed related litigation that Molloy addressed in last week’s order.

The environmental groups argued in their filings that grizzly bears in the project area are already struggling from an increase in human and motorized activity, both of which deprive the carnivores of the secure habitat they need to live and reproduce. Logging, they argued, would further challenge grizzlies’ ability to maintain a stable population in the area. There are currently about 1,000 grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is anchored by Yellowstone National Park. 

Plaintiffs also pointed out that nearly 15,000 acres of the project are designated as habitat for Canada lynx, which are adversely impacted by logging and have been federally protected since 2000. Lynx have occasionally been spotted in Greater Yellowstone, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote in a 2024 report that there does not appear to be a resident breeding population in the area. 

Sun Mountain Lumber joined the Forest Service in the suit as an intervenor. The company had bid on one of the three timber sales associated with the project to establish a lumber supply for its sawmills in Deer Lodge and Livingston. Sean Steinebach, Sun Mountain’s outreach forester, said the decision “really hurts.” He hopes that the Forest Service will appeal it to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, he said.

“Raw material for our operations is indispensable,” Steinebach said. “It’s a good project and [the Forest Service] did their due diligence. … They took everything into account.”

Steinebach contends that the agency should have been given more deference than Molloy offered it. “I’m not a judge, but I also don’t think judges should be managing our national forests,” he said.

In project documents and a 2023 interview with MTFP, Forest Service leadership maintained that they decided to leave the location open-ended so they could evaluate conditions on the ground. Additional information was needed, they said, to assess where mitigating the risk of difficult-to-control crown fires was most warranted and to increase the mix of young and old trees to discourage mountain pine beetle outbreaks.

In his order, Molloy took issue with the agency’s “conditions-based management” framework, arguing that it prevented the type of informed decision-making the National Environmental Policy Act requires. He wrote that the road-building has the potential to “eviscerate secure habitat” for grizzly bears and the failure to consider that possibility was “arbitrary and capricious.” Molloy also agreed with the environmental groups that the Forest Service failed to comply with aspects of the Custer Gallatin National Forest’s recently adopted forest plan regarding the administration of grizzly bear habitat and a limit on timber harvest in Canada lynx habitat.

Molloy rejected the plaintiffs’ claim regarding the Forest Service’s analysis of climate impacts associated with the removal and regrowth of pine trees within South Plateau’s boundary. Instead, he found that the agency conducted an adequate analysis of climate change considerations such as carbon storage and emissions.

In a press release about the decision, Bishop criticized the Forest Service for “arbitrarily defining secure habitat for grizzly bears as small as 10-acre patch sizes,” an approach he characterized as “playing too fast and loose with the law and with the science.”

“The agencies must now go back and do the rigorous, science-based analysis the law requires,” Mike Garrity of Alliance for the Wild Rockies wrote in a statement.

Since Molloy vacated the South Plateau decision in its entirety, the Forest Service will have to produce a new environmental analysis if it wishes to resurrect the project. It can also appeal the decision to a higher court.