The Pallisades. Photo: Michael Hoyt,
Thanks to our threat to sue the Forest Service over using a categorical exclusion to avoid analyzing impacts on bull trout, grizzly bears, and lynx, a massive deforestation project in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley has been halted.
The Forest Service’s Eastside Project authorized 15,000-45,000 acres of tree cutting and burning per year for 20 years and the 500,000-acre project covers almost the entire east side of the Bitterroot National Forest from Stevensville to over 50 miles south in the Sapphire Mountains.
The Forest Service illegally authorized this massive project through the use of a categorical exclusion, which was intended for projects that would have no impact on the environment such as painting an outhouse or building a shed at a Ranger station.
But now the project has been halted since the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Center for Biological Diversity, Fiends of the Bitterroot and other conservation groups sent the government a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue for violating the Endangered Species Act. We notified the Forest Service that they failed comply with the Endangered Species act in a number of ways including failing consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the project’s effect on bull trout and grizzly bears — both of which are listed as threatened species — in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
Congress included the 60-day notice requirement in the citizens’ enforcement provision of the Endangered Species Act specifically to give the government that much time to correct their illegal activity before facing a lawsuit.
Normally the Forest Service responds to our 60-day notices with a letter telling us to go jump in a lake. Then we sue the agency — and have won in court over 80 percent of the time. But this time, undoubtedly realizing they were fighting a losing battle, the Forest Service agreed to halt actions to implement the tree cutting and burning until they followed the law.
It would be great to think the Forest Service has all of a sudden became a law-abiding agency, but unfortunately, they are still violating other laws with this project, including by authorizing half a million acres of tree cutting and burning without environmental review.
Despite the vast landscape the project will impact, the Forest Service did not disclose where the tree cutting and burning will occur. That’s a clear violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal government — and anyone who does a project using federal money — to notify the public of what they plan to do, where they plan to do it, and how it will affect the environment.
In the case of the Eastside project, the Forest Service claims that the precise location, timing, and scope of the treatments will be decided immediately prior to implementation, but without further analysis or public input which is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
The law also requires the Forest Service to take a “hard look” at potential impacts to wildlife, including wolverines which are particularly important since scientists have discovered a lactating female wolverine in the project area, and there have been multiple instances of confirmed grizzly bear presence in the Sapphire Mountains over the past year. Grizzly bears, lynx, wolverines, bull trout and bull trout critical habitat are all protected under the Endangered Species Act.
American citizens are required to follow the law every single day. It is time for the Forest Service to start following the law and quit destroying habitat for threatened and endangered species.
During the last Trump administration, our small, gritty organization, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, sued 18 times to protect our planet and we won 16 times.
Please help the Alliance for the Wild Rockies fight to make the Trump Administration’s Forest Service follow the law and help Counterpunch spread the word.