High Court Rejects Second Challenge Of Harvest Group Argued Timber Sale Would Hurt Recreation

The Supreme Court has rejected a second attempt by a conservation group to challenge timber harvests on state land in the Priest Lake area.

The unanimous decision issued on Tuesday rejected the Selkirk-Priest Basin Association’s claim that the proposed harvest of 7.4 million board feet of timber would adversely affect its members’ recreational and aesthetic use of the Bugle Creek drainage. The association also argued that the timber sale would harm threatened grizzly bears and destroy fish habitat.

Writing for the court, Justice Cathy Silak said the adverse impact claimed by the association was no different than the timber sale’s impact on any other Idaho resident or visitor to the area and therefore did not give it standing.

“We do not believe that the members’ occasional use of the area for recreational and aesthetic enjoyment creates a particularized injury … not shared in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citizens,” Silak wrote.

The high court had earlier denied the association the chance to challenge another sale in the Priest Lake area on grounds that only schools and school children were the beneficiaries of state lands timber sales - not their parents or grandparents - and therefore were the only ones who could directly challenge the state’s administration.

Attorney Laird Lucas, representing the Selkirk association, had warned that if the high court ruled against the latest challenge, the issue might be taken into federal court.