Court Cancels Log Sales 3-Judge Panel Blocks Roadless Area Harvests

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has halted a logging sale and canceled three others in a prime hunting area above Hells Canyon, as well as cutting on eastern Idaho’s Targhee National Forest.

A three-judge panel of the circuit court on March 4 blocked the sale of timber in the Cuddy Mountain area of the Payette National Forest after the Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain and the Idaho Sporting Congress appealed a ruling by U.S. Magistrate Mikel Williams.

“The decisions come too late to save most of the Cuddy Mountain Roadless Area, one of the last high-quality elk hunting grounds in southwest Idaho,” said Steve Davis, congress biologist.

“It’s a hollow victory because 16 miles of illegal road slashed across the roadless area’s heart have destroyed 17,000 acres of our children’s and grandchildren’s wilderness hunting heritage.”

The groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in 1996 to halt Boise Cascade Corp. from cutting in the Grade-Dukes timber sale. They questioned the Forest Service’s analysis of the potential environmental impacts, contending the agency had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and National Forest Management Act.

Williams refused to issue an injunction and while the two groups appealed, logging continued until 10 million board feet of timber were cut, the plaintiffs charged.

Other sales and roads are planned, but have been halted by the 9th Circuit order.

Neighbors and the Idaho Sporting Congress claimed Grade-Dukes and the other sales would greatly deplete the amount of old-growth timber remaining on the Payette forest.

The agency did not show it would would follow its Payette management plan by preserving at least 5 percent of old-growth trees across the forest, the circuit court said.

It also agreed an agency analysis of the other proposed sales did not show their potential cumulative effect on the mature trees.

And the Forest Service made “broad generalizations and vague references” about mitigation efforts for streams affected by the Grade-Dukes project, the court wrote.

The circuit court also ruled March 4 in favor of the Idaho Sporting Congress and American Wildlands on the Miners Creek timber sale on the Targhee National Forest. It reverses a decision by U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill.

The groups raised concerns over the potential damage to habitat in the Centennial Mountains by cutting 3.1 million board feet. The sale was to have logged nearly 1,000 acres of forest adjacent to another timber sale in West Camas Creek.

“All along we had maintained that the Forest Service was making logging decisions without adequately analyzing their impacts to other important resources such as fisheries and wildlife,” said Rob Ament of American Wildlands. “Now the Targhee National Forest will have to slow down and follow the law.”