Suit fights logging of tract near trail

LEWISTON – An Idaho couple are fighting to keep the U.S. Forest Service from logging 117 acres near a trail where explorers Lewis and Clark walked 200 years ago on their historic trek to the Pacific Ocean.

Gene and Mollie Eastman of Weippe and a coalition of environmental groups including the Lands Council of Spokane and Moscow-based Friends of the Clearwater sued the federal agency Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene.

They’re seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the project. Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co. of Seeley Lake, Mont., won the bid.

Forest Service officials say the salvage logging on an area known as Wendover Ridge would harvest about 1.1 million board feet of timber in an area damaged by a 2003 fire. They say it wouldn’t touch the trail the adventurers used in the early 19th century to bypass difficult terrain along the Lochsa River.

Still, the Eastmans – and the environmental groups – say the site is as significant historically as the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield or even George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, Va., and as such should be spared the chain saw.

“I’m not against logging,” Mollie Eastman said. “I think logging is a good thing. But I think there are places we should log and places we should stay away from.”

In 1805, members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped along the Lochsa River in north-central Idaho as they trudged west, having just crossed the Bitterroot Mountains.

They hiked over Wendover Ridge to get to the Nez Perce Trail, along what is now the Lolo Motorway, a primitive, winding road built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The steep route is now part of the National Historic Trail system.

Two years ago a fire swept through the Wendover area and burned about 3,400 acres. Officials in the Clearwater National Forest want to remove some of the dead trees before their economic value is lost.

Joni Packard, ranger of the forest’s Powell District, said the trail is safe from logging, with work occurring near the trail but not on it. The logs will be removed with helicopters and one temporary road will be built.

The work is designed to only remove trees killed in the fire. According to Packard, 30 percent to 50 percent of the trees will remain after the cutting is finished.

She said one of the logged areas will be visible from the historic trail. The Eastmans and the environmental groups argue that the logging will happen at the same time tourists and history buffs are coming to the trail to mark the 200th anniversary of the expedition and its role in opening up the western United States.

Pyramid Mountain managers say they hope to get on the job quickly, in part to make sure they’re finished by the time visitors start coming.