Trapper Creek Sale Blocked Supreme Court Notes Questions Raised By Environmental Groups

FOR THE RECORD: (May 27, 1995, Idaho edition): An Idaho Supreme Court decision issued Thursday does not block the state’s Trapper Creek timber sale, which is under way near Priest Lake. A headline in Friday’s edition was wrong.

Two Idaho environmental groups have won a round in their battle to block a state timber sale in the Trapper Creek Drainage in Bonner and Boundary counties.

The Idaho Supreme Court on Thursday revived a lawsuit filed by Selkirk-Priest Basin Association and the Idaho Environmental Council against the state Land Board.

A District Court judge granted summary judgment in favor of the Land Board, but the Supreme Court said there were sufficient questions raised by the environmental groups to require more court hearings.

The environmental groups claimed the timber sale would cause erosion detrimental to Trapper Creek, and attacked the Land Board’s statewide timber sale plans.

A divided Supreme Court agreed with 1st District Judge Craig Kosonen that the environmental groups lacked standing to attack the Land Board timber sale plans because neither the associations nor their members could show that the board’s actions would harm them.

The environmental groups argued that school students are the beneficiaries of state endowment lands. The state contended the beneficiaries of the trusts are the schools and school districts.

“Neither environmental group represents a single school or school district,” the court said, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Charles McDevitt. “Consequently, the District Court correctly ruled that the environmental groups lack the standing necessary to challenge the administration of school endowment lands trust assets.”

But the Supreme Court ordered further court proceedings on the question of whether under the “public trust” doctrine, the environmental groups could challenge the timber sale. Whether the harvest will actually damage the creek and surrounding areas is something that has to be determined, the court said.

Justice Byron Johnson dissented from the ruling that schools and school districts are the beneficiaries of income from school endowment lands.

“The true beneficiaries are those who benefit from the state’s constitutional duty to maintain common schools - the students,” Johnson said. “The environmental groups have standing to bring this action on behalf of students, whose parents are members of the groups.”