A foggy morning at Calispell Meadows on the Colville National Forest in northeast Washington – Photo courtesy USFS
Once again the Alliance for the Wild Rockies caught the Forest Service breaking the law, took the agency to court, and won. This time a Washington federal court has thrown out the Forest Service’s decision for the Sxwutn-Kaniksu (pronounced as s-who-ee-tin kuh-NICK-soo) Connections “Trail” Project. The massive 20-year project authorized logging, burning and bulldozing in roads across 141 square miles of Pend-Oreille County, impacting more than 90% of the Colville National Forest in eastern Washington on the Idaho border.
Having lost so many times in court, the Forest Service tried a new tactic for this project. Namely, simply refuse to tell the public where it’s going to clearcut, log and bulldoze new roads.
It didn’t work. The court ruled the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal government to take “a hard look” at the environmental impacts of a proposed project and release the analysis to the public for review and comment and consider those public comments.
In other words, the Forest Service has to tell the public what exactly they plan to do or the public review and comment requirement cannot be met. That’s especially important for this project because it’s located in habitat for sensitive and threatened species, including wolverine, gray wolves, northern goshawks, bats, and woodpeckers in addition to lynx, grizzlies and bull trout.
Northern Goshawk, Photo by Colville National Forest
The Forest Service claims the Trail project, which covers tens of thousands of acres over decades of continuous logging, burning, and clearcutting, was supposedly for “forest health.” But in the end, the court ruled the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The Forest Service’s illegal ploy to continue the deforestation and ecosystem destruction of the Northern Rockies didn’t work.
The information the Forest Service tried to hide included leaving burned and barren stump fields in its wake while destroying critical habitat for species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, including lynx, wolverines, and grizzly bears.
Nor did the agency analyze the impacts to spawning streams for bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout from sediment run-off from 57 miles of new roads and reconstructing 292 miles of currently impassable old logging roads. This despite the fact that Bull trout are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act while Washington State lists cutthroat trout as a ‘Species of Greatest Conservation Need’ under the State Wildlife Action Plan.
Red-necked grebe at Bead Lake in the Trail Logging Project area –
Photo by Paul Sieracki
The agency even failed to map the old growth around South Skookum Lake, the most extensive stands left on the Colville Forest outside of the Salmo Wilderness Area. Instead, it ridiculously claimed 15 years after logging the area would be grizzly bear ‘core’ habitat. But it’s well-documented that most grizzly bears are killed near roads. Hence bulldozing in 349 miles of new and currently impassable old roads will have the exact opposite effect.
Grizzly bears (U.S. Fish and Wildlife)
It’s a mystery why the Forest Service would try this ploy again considering it lost a 2023 case on the Colville Forest because it didn’t identify nor analyze the specifics of where it intended to log. As the Court ruled in that case: “If the Agency does not know where or when an activity will occur or if it will occur at all, then the effects of that action cannot be meaningfully evaluated.”
In conclusion, the Alliance caught the Forest Service breaking the law yet again. It’s neither cheap nor easy to challenge the federal government in court and keep these lands intact for present and future generations. Please consider helping the Alliance fight to protect forests in the northern Rockies and the imperiled fish and wildlife that rely on intact ecosystems to survive.
Mike Garrity is the Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
