Group wants new fire lookout razed

DARRINGTON, Wash. – A Montana environmental group is suing the U.S. Forest Service over the construction of a new fire lookout in the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area northeast of Seattle.

The group, Wilderness Watch, claims in the federal lawsuit that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it built the new $50,000 lookout on Green Mountain in 2009. The building replaced a lookout built in the 1930s and long used for wilderness management and as a rest stop for hikers.

Wilderness Watch says the Forest Service didn’t study the environmental consequences before building the new lookout, and the use of a helicopter and power tools in the construction also violated the act. It wants the structure removed.

The Herald newspaper of Everett reports that the lawsuit has angered hiking groups in the region. They promote the history of fire lookouts in the region and believe the buildings help people appreciate the wilderness.

Forest Service personnel declined to comment, but Scott Morris, a member of the Darrington Historical Society, said: “I could sympathize with Wilderness Watch if every mountain in the Glacier Peak Wilderness were somehow threatened. The purist zealotry of this group is going to harm appreciation of the wilderness. Shall we not walk in the wilderness anymore?”