Judge: Halt Practices That Harm Salmon Forest Service Must Stop Activities In 6 Forests

A federal judge has ordered a stop to all logging, grazing, mining and road-building projects that might harm endangered Snake River sockeye and chinook salmon in six Idaho national forests.

The decision by Judge David Ezra was signed Monday and filed Thursday in Boise. Senior U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan originally had the case but it was reassigned to Ezra in Hawaii last November.

His ruling granted an injunction sought last August by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and The Wilderness Society. The environmental groups argued that the Forest Service did not consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service about the impact on endangered salmon of its long-range management plans for the Boise, Challis, Payette, Nez Perce, Salmon and Sawtooth national forests.

They applauded the judge’s action Friday.

“This is a victory for Idaho’s salmon,” said Kristen Boyles, a Legal Defense Fund lawyer in Seattle. “While the dams remain an enormous problem, the court made it clear that the Forest Service can no longer shrug its shoulders and continue to destroy salmon habitat.”

The Forest Service contends it has resumed consultations with the fisheries service, which oversees federal protection of salmon runs listed under the Endangered Species Act. But Ezra’s order says the agency “must be enjoined from announcing, awarding, permitting, or conducting any new timber sales, range activities, mining activities, or road building projects until formal consultation” on the forest management plans is completed.

In addition, the Forest Service must stop all activities already announced or under way that might harm the salmon, and even those unlikely to hurt the fish runs must be reviewed by the court to determine whether they should proceed while consultations with the Marine Fisheries Service continue.

Ezra, citing a similar decision by U.S. District Judge Malcolm Marsh involving Oregon’s WallowaWhitman and Umatilla national forests, said there was probable cause to believe the Forest Service was guilty of “significant violations” of the Endangered Species Act.

Agency officials were unavailable for comment Friday. But a Boise attorney for one of the mining companies that intervened against the proposed injunction said he was confident his client’s central Idaho gold mine would not hurt salmon.