Groups File Suits To Stop Salmon River Logging Conservationists Want To Keep More South Fork Damage At Bay

Conservation groups filed two lawsuits Thursday to stop renewed logging in the South Fork of the Salmon River, which suffered the worst slides in the state’s history when logging roads collapsed in 1965.

The road washouts destroyed the spawning habitat for salmon. The South Fork once produced an estimated 40,000 salmon a year and the road failures became a textbook example of how not to construct harvest byways.

Because of the disaster, the South Fork was supposed to remain off-limits to logging until 1997 to give salmon and trout a chance to recover, conservationists say.

Instead, the U.S. Forest Service is selling 110 million board feet of timber here and on the main river.

Since Congress suspended all environmental laws for Forest Service salvage logging through the end of 1996, the Idaho Sporting Congress is suing under the Public Trust Doctrine. That holds that public lands should not be damaged, said Ron Mitchell, ISC’s executive director.

His group also alleges that the sales violate the Administrative Procedures Act because they are arbitrary and capricious. “What could be a greater betrayal of the public trust than to potentially damage an already severely damaged stream?” Mitchell said.

The Wilderness Society, Idaho Conservation League and Idaho Steelhead and Salmon filed a similar action in U.S. District Court in Boise.

The Forest Service maintains the logging is environmentally sound. The agency also says the logging is necessary to restore productivity to the areas, burned by 1994 wildfires.

, DataTimes