A pair of contrary court decisions let one Seeley-Swan logging project go forward while holding up another a few miles away.
The Lolo National Forest released contracts for the Colt-Summit project 10 miles north of Seeley Lake last week, after several years of court challenges. Then on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy blocked work on the Glacier-Loon project southwest of Condon, and held up future logging on lands the U.S. Forest Service acquired from the Nature Conservancy as part of the Montana Legacy Project.
“We’re involved in both projects,” Pyramid Mountain Lumber resource manager Gordy Sanders said Friday. “They’re both significant projects in terms of raw materials for the mill.”
Both projects involve a mix of logging, thinning, habitat improvement and road deconstruction in the Lolo and Flathead national forests between the Mission Mountains and Bob Marshall wilderness areas. Both were challenged by environmental groups that argued the U.S. Forest Service failed to adequately study or respond to the needs of sensitive wildlife such as grizzly bears, lynx, wolverines and bull trout.
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The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block the Colt-Summit project before holding a full hearing on its merits last April. While that hearing hasn’t taken place yet, Sanders said he was pleased the Forest Service opted to move ahead.
Colt-Summit is expected to provide about 2,500 man-days of work at the mill sawing lumber. That figure doesn’t count time spend cutting the trees, repairing or demolishing roads, improving wildlife habitat and treating noxious weeds that are also included in the contracts.
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The Glacier-Loon decision could be more significant. In addition to stalling 4,500 man-days of sawmill work, it has also blocked future work on lands the Forest Service acquired in one of the biggest private property transfers in the nation.
That was the 310,000 acres Plum Creek Timber Co. sold to The Nature Conservancy in 2009. That included 111,740 acres between Seeley Lake and Condon, which TNC transferred to the Forest Service in return for a $250 million tax refund.
The deal between TNC and Plum Creek included rights to cut timber on the formerly private lands through 2018. When TNC handed the property over to the Forest Service, it retained the rights to harvest.
Molloy ruled that even though the Forest Service wasn’t in the harvest negotiations before it received the land, it still had to apply its own National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act rules to future logging projects.
“In this case, the Agreed Operating Procedures (between TNC and Plum Creek) do not deprive the Forest Servcie of discretion to shape future logging plans for the benefit of protected species,” Molloy wrote.
He also found the Forest Service failed to make some required consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding how its logging projects might affect threatened species.
“This is a very significant victory for grizzly bears and other wildlife in the Swan Valley,” said Swan View Coalition chairman Keith Hammer, one of the plaintiffs seeking to block the project. “It means that habitat must be managed according to the higher standards of the Flathead Forest Plan now that the Forest Service owns most of these old Plum Creek lands. We only wish the Forest Service had resolved this using common sense and the appeals process years ago, rather than forcing us to waste precious time and resources in court. It blew off its environmental responsibility in managing these Legacy lands for five years before the legal system caught up and said, ‘Whoa, not so fast.’ ”
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TNC officials were not available for comment on the Glacier-Loon decision and its effect on future logging. But Scott Brennan of the Wilderness Society said the Colt-Summit project’s collaborative approach brought conservationists, wildlife biologists and loggers together in ways that signaled better forest management.
“The project is going to create some jobs, reduce fire risk, improve some habitat and remove some roads,” Brennan said. “The people involved may not agree on everything, but they do want to get good projects on the ground. The collaborative approach can bear fruit.”
Sanders said Glacier-Loon followed a similar pattern, and would have similar results if allowed to go forward. But Alliance for the Wild Rockies Director Michael Garrity said the Forest Service’s continued failure to meet all its requirements remained a challenge for both projects.
“Just because we didn’t get the injunction doesn’t mean we have lost the Colt-Summit case,” Garrity said. “I don’ think the Wilderness Society and Pyramid Lumber should get too excited about Colt-Summit yet.”
But biologists involved in both projects said the overall results should prove beneficial. The two areas overlap sensitive territory for grizzly bears, lynx, bull trout and wolverines.
“The Colt-Summit project will significantly increase the amount of secure lynx and grizzly habitat within an important riparian corridor, will remove roads that are sending sediment into a native trout stream, and will maintain sufficient cover to allow a variety of wildlife species to continue to move through the area,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologist Jay Kolbe said in an email. “This project is thoughtfully planned out, grounded in good science and long overdue.”
