Forest Service Criticized For Appealing Land Use Limits Environmental Groups Say Agency Flouting The Law

Environmental groups reacted angrily Friday to a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to ask the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that restricted grazing and logging on two forests in Eastern Oregon and six in Idaho.

Environmentalists accused the federal agency of purposely disregarding the law and placing the Snake River chinook salmon runs in greater danger of extinction.

They said the Forest Service was following the same path that it did in the spotted owl case, when federal court rulings locked up vast areas from logging.

“The Forest Service hasn’t learned,” said Todd True, managing attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund in Seattle.

“The agency is repeating the same pattern of deliberate disregard for the law that the courts refused to tolerate when the Forest Service was liquidating the ancient forests.”

Sylvia Brucchi, spokeswoman for the Forest Service in Portland, confirmed that the U.S. Justice Department petitioned the Supreme Court late Friday afternoon.

The Eugene-based Pacific Rivers Council, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, was sharply critical of the Forest Service action.

“The nation needs to know that the administration was pushed to appeal this decision by old hard-liners in the Forest Service who refuse to change their ways and want to continue business as usual,” said Bob Doppelt, the council’s executive director.

Last July, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that required the Forest Service to consult with federal fish biologists in the development of management plans for the Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla forests in Oregon.

The ruling also applies to a separate lawsuit filed against six national forests in Idaho. They are the Boise, Challis, Payette, Nez Perce, Salmon and Sawtooth forests.

The consultation is necessary, environmental groups say, to protect the endangered Snake River chinook salmon runs.

Three weeks after its ruling, the appeals court issued an injunction stopping grazing, timber sales and road construction on the two Oregon forests that might harm the endangered spring-summer and fall chinook runs in the Snake River.

Last October, U.S. District Judge Malcolm Marsh of Portland allowed limited winter grazing on the two forests and said that timber already cut under existing contracts be removed.

But he refused to allow further logging in areas under contract until the consultation was done and did not take any action on spring and summer grazing.

The Forest Service does not want to reopen its management plans each time a species is declared threatened or endangered. Instead, the agency has consulted with federal fisheries biologists on a project-by-project basis.

But environmentalists say the Endangered Species Act requires the consultation to make certain no forest activities harm salmon habitat, and both Marsh and the appeals court agreed.

“You simply can’t tell how much harm you are doing to the fish looking at them one project at a time,” Berger said. “You have to look at the big picture, what is planned to go on on these forests for the next decade and what the cumulative effects of all those activities will be.”