Region 1 – A Years Worth of Harvests Tied Up In Litigation

How many times on this site have we heard that acreage and timber volume tied up in litigation is insignificant? This would seem to indicate otherwise:

“Covering Idaho, Montana and portions of the Dakotas, Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service has reached a grim milestone.

Over 35,000 acres of forest projects on Region 1 National Forests are stymied by litigation. The amount of timber tied up in lawsuits (355 million board feet) is now more than region’s entire timber harvest of 321 million board feet”

4 thoughts on “Region 1 – A Years Worth of Harvests Tied Up In Litigation”

    • Matthew

      Read your link – Seems to be for Montana only and for ?2013?

      Your linked Washington Post article has a link to the author’s source May 2015 updated report link. The findings include:
      Page 2 clearly supports my original link for the entire Region 1. On page 2 we read “Results from this study demonstrate that R1 experiences a relatively high level of litigation both in terms of the number of projects that are litigated and the proportion of the region’s annual timber program and budget that are impacted by litigation. From 2008 through 2013, R1 had more than 70 projects litigated – more than any other FS region. In recent years, litigation has encumbered 40 to 50 percent of R1’s planned timber harvest volume and treatment acres, and litigation of the SBR project alone involved more than 25 percent of the Flathead National Forest’s FY 2013 timber program. The estimated financial impact of litigation-encumbered timber volume on R1’s congressionally appropriated timber program budget was $9.8 million in FY 2013 and $6.8 million in FY 2014. Economic impacts to communities – in jobs, labor income, federal, state, and local taxes – are identified as the largest potential impacts of FS litigation (potentially exceeding $10 million and 130 jobs for the SBR project alone), particularly when timber harvesting and other land management activities that create or maintain private employment and generate wages and other taxable revenue are reduced, delayed, or completely forgone as a result of litigation.”
      Page 12 “Of the 133 R1 cases in past 11 years, the majority (75) were by repeat litigants, with 30 cases filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR), 19 by the Native Ecosystems Council (NEC), 8 by the Lands Council, 5 each by the Ecology Center, Friends of the Wild Swan, and Swan View Coalition, and 3 by the Wild West Institute. Three of the top four recipients of attorney/EAJA fee payments in R1 were repeat litigants: AWR received $139,200 over 6 cases; NEC received $137,436 over 4 cases, and the Ecology Center received $173,072 over 4 cases. The Rock Creek Alliance received $186,500 for a single case.”

      So my original 2017 link does not seem to be refuted and the conclusion remains that litigation has a serious impact on Region 1 – contrary to the statement in your link which addresses a small subset of time and only a part of Region 1.

      If you have more current info that directly refutes this conclusion I would greatly appreciate a link so that I can identify any reliability issues with my source.

      Reply
        • Matthew

          Thank you, but your new link is virtually a carbon copy of the WP article.

          I’m not interested in what some confused politician/liar said. I’m interested in the truth and, according to the source document for the WP article, it appears that the truth is that litigation does have a significant impact on the availability of timber, ability to efficiently reduce the potential for catastrophic loss for all species and on the economic viability of the surrounding community as I quoted in my 3/14/17 comment above. Both of your links cherry picked the source to find years and subregions within region 1 that differ with the region 1 average for an extended time period.

          Read the source document linked to at the bottom of the WP article.

          Reply

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