Groups sue state to slow logging

Concerned about increased logging of old-growth timber – as well as a resulting rise in backcountry road use and the effect on endangered species in the Selkirk Mountains – two Idaho conservation groups filed suit against the Idaho Department of Lands on Thursday in federal court.

The Selkirk Conservation Alliance and the Idaho Conservation League have sued the Idaho Department of Lands, as well as individual Land Board members, seeking to slow down logging on state endowment lands in the Selkirks around Priest Lake.

Legislators on the budget committee last session unanimously approved a Department of Lands proposal that would boost the state timber harvest by 20 million board feet a year for the next decade. In addition to making millions more for the state endowment, department officials said they wanted to cut larger, older trees before sawmills switch completely to equipment that would handle only smaller-diameter trees.

“What we’re looking for is a change in management practices,” Rick Price, a Sandpoint elementary school teacher who is also on the Idaho Conservation League’s board of directors, said Friday. “We are hoping they will modify their practices” to preserve old-growth timber, which provides critical habitat for endangered woodland caribou and grizzly bears, as well as the canopy critical for endangered bull trout.

Mick Schanilec, the Lands Department’s area supervisor in the Priest Lake area, said the DOL manages 186,000 acres of what are called endowment lands, which generate money for the state, in the Selkirks. About 105,000 acres are considered commercial timberland, with the money targeted for public schools, Schanilec said.

“We are interested in generating long-term revenue for the endowment fund, and at Priest it is primarily for the public schools,” Schanilec said.

The conservation groups have a different view.

“We are thinking the Land Board is not managing the Priest Lake State Forest in a sustainable manner,” Price said. “The Land Board is entrusted to manage this for the best long-term yield for Idaho schools. We believe they are managing for a short-term yield” by boosting the harvest of old-growth timber, Price said.

State Lands Director Winston Wiggins told The Spokesman-Review last fall that big old-growth trees will lose economic value when mills retool to handle only smaller-diameter timber.

The goal with cutting more old-growth, Wiggins said, is “certainly to get through a lot of ‘em while we still have decent markets for them.”

Other foresters have said the Lands Department strategy is a good one for getting the most value out of old-growth. But the conservation groups contend old-growth has other values as well – critical habitat for endangered species.

“The Department of Lands is selling short our kids’ future and ignoring the law,” Mark Sprengel, executive director of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, said in a news release.

“If the forests cannot support healthy populations of wildlife, it is a sign we are not managing them well and cannot sustainably log them for our future needs.”

The conservation groups contend the state logging projects create more roads and exacerbate an already contentious argument about booming backcountry ATV and snow machine use on old logging and forest roads.

The roads, the old-growth cuts and the increased motorized recreation all have a bad effect on declining or endangered species such as grizzlies and mountain caribou.

Timber harvest also increases sedimentation in streams supporting endangered bull trout, the conservation groups say.

The conservation groups “are reluctant to do this,” Price said of the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Idaho. “We are hoping they modify their practices,” Price said.

“We support moderate, common-sense forestry practices that protect the special values of these forests over the long term,” John Robinson, of the Idaho Conservation League, said in a news release. “

We think the Idaho Department of Lands can do a better job of providing a steady flow of logs for mills, supporting local communities, sending cash to the schools and ensuring that kids today and tomorrow will enjoy Idaho’s wildlife heritage.”