Judge won’t halt forest thinning

MISSOULA – A federal judge here has denied a request by two environmental groups to block a project to thin a heavily forested area in the Bitterroot Valley.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, in a decision dated last Friday, declined to issue a preliminary injunction for the project. He said the WildWest Institute and the Friends of the Bitterroot were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the U.S. Forest Service violated procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.

Matthew Koehler, the WildWest Institute’s executive director, said Wednesday his group was reviewing its options, which may include an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We were disappointed,” Koehler said of Molloy’s ruling.

The case involved the contentious Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project, Montana’s first hazardous materials reduction project under the Bush administration’s Healthy Forests initiative.

The proposal in the Bitterroot National Forest consists of logging on about 6,000 acres. The Forest Service contends the project would help protect area homes from massive wildfires like those that swept through the Bitterroot Valley in 2000.

Environmental groups argued that only a small portion of the logging would provide protection to communities, and that much more would occur in areas of old-growth timber, home to a variety of animal species and a popular recreation area.

In his ruling, Molloy said the possibility of a severe wildfire and its effect on the community is a measurable injury, and he had to balance the risk of human lives with the loss of recreation opportunities.

“In balancing the hardship to the parties, the scales tip toward the defendants and away from granting a preliminary injunction,” he wrote.

The environmental groups claimed the Forest Service violated federal environmental laws by, among other things, committing resources before a decision was made, censoring contrary science and selectively excluding members of the public from the process.

They didn’t have a problem with work completed near structures, the environmentalists said, but opposed commercial logging.

Molloy’s order questioned the environmental groups’ methods of obtaining comments for the project. The groups said 98 percent of the 11,000 public comments received on the project supported the alternative they developed, which called for reducing fuels within a 400-meter buffer around homes and structures.

The Forest Service discovered the e-mailed comments were generated through a commercial company – and when it attempted to respond to the e-mail, found that many of the addresses weren’t valid or that some people didn’t know their names were on the list and asked to be removed.

Molloy also took the Forest Service to task for its decision to exclude some members of the public from a news conference last summer. Molloy said the decision “was not a wise political move.”

“When this type of act takes place, the message the Forest Service sends, whether intended or not, is that it will tolerate participation only to the extent the law requires and that after such point is reached, disagreeing voices are not welcome. They are excluded,” he wrote. “Such a message is at odds with the intent of Congress. It is at odds with public courtesy. And, it is at odds with participatory transparent public involvement.”

Ravalli County Attorney George Corn represented a group of local government, businesses and private individuals who intervened in the case.

“We’re very pleased with the judge’s decision,” Corn said Wednesday. “This is a really important project. It’s important to see that something like this can go through and the Forest Service can get started implementing it.”

Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Dave Bull said many in the agency were surprised at the speed of Molloy’s decision, which came down just a day after he held a hearing on the dispute.