Litigation

Lawsuit filed against CE logging in IRA, WSA, RNA and Old-Growth

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We’re discussed the appropriate, or inappropriate, use of Categorical Exclusions (CE’s) by the Forest Service in the past (here and here).  What about a CE for a 17,000 acre logging project that includes logging within Inventoried Roadless Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Research Natural Areas, and old growth forests? Is a CE really an appropriate level of analysis and public input for such a project?   Clearly some folks think not.  The following is a press release from the Alliance for Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council.  A copy of the complaint is here.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed a lawsuit on Friday in Federal District Court against the Forest Service to stop the Little Belt Mountain Hazard Tree Removal Project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest.  The Forest Service plans to log 17,000 acres on National Forest Lands, including logging in Inventoried Roadless Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Research Natural Areas, and old growth forests.  The Forest Service authorized these activities under a Categorical Exclusion from the environmental analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Up until now the Forest Service has done a full environmental analysis on large roadside logging projects,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.  “We didn’t oppose the agency on those projects, but in this case the agency is excluding itself from the requirement to keep the public informed of the environmental effects and to provide public input on the proposal.  Categorical Exclusions were intended for purposes such as mowing the lawn at the Ranger Station or painting outhouses, not logging over 17,000 acres.”

“Herbicide spraying and logging will occur in several already degraded watersheds and along several streams that are considered ‘impaired’ due to sediment,” Garrity explained.  “These areas provide habitat for the westslope cutthroat trout and the Western toad, both are considered ‘sensitive species’ on the Forest and both will be impacted by logging – especially when you consider approximately 1,700 acres of logging and herbicide spraying will occur within 150 feet of streams.  The result will be to dump more sediment into already degraded streams where these native fish are struggling to survive”.

“I have recently driven roads in the Little Belt Mountains and there is evidence of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, but it is in patches, not forest wide,” explained Sara Johnson, Director of Native Ecosystems Council and former Gallatin National Forest biologist.  “Where the beetles have killed trees next to the road, firewood cutters have already done a good job cutting them down.  It’s a mystery why the Forest Service wants to log 17,000 acres of so-called ‘hazardous trees’ when there isn’t a hazard. The only hazard will be to the native wildlife when 17,000 acres of important habitat is clearcut and to the taxpayers who have to pay for it.”

“There are already massive infestations of noxious weeds, such as thistle and houndstongue, along roads,” Johnson said.  “They can’t control the weed problem now and logging will just make it worse.”

“The Canada lynx, listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act, has historical presence on the Forest including recent sightings in the project area. Lynx, wolverine, black-backed woodpecker, Northern goshawk, Western toad, and Northern three-toed woodpecker all are known to occur in the area and their numbers will be further reduced by these massive clearcuts,” concluded Johnson.

“We support logging to protect public safety,” Garrity said.  “But the public needs to be kept informed to ensure that the Federal Government is following the law. The public needs to be shown that there is a real safety hazard and not just an imagined excuse for more subsidized logging.

“It is unfortunate that we have to ask the court to intervene to force the Federal Government to let the public be involved in the management of our National Forests, Garrity concluded.  “But in the end, we firmly believe the public should have a say in the management of public lands…even if we have to go to court to get it.”

Conservationists Fight Timber Industry’s NFMA Lawsuit Seeking To Limit Role Of Science

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The Western Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Oregon Wild, filed a motion today in federal district Court in Washington D.C. to fight a lawsuit that aims to drastically limit the use of science to help manage our national forests.

Led by the timber industry, a coalition of industry groups filed suit on August 31 to challenge the new planning rule for the national forest system, designed provide for sustainable management of 193 million acres of national forests across the country. The purpose of the industry group’s lawsuit is to prevent the Forest Service from using “best available science” and ecosystem management tools to guide decisions affecting national forests, and to prohibit the agency from maintaining “viable populations” of wildlife, among other legal claims.

Conservation groups are seeking to intervene in this lawsuit in order to ensure the use of sound science in decisions affecting the public’s air and water, and our children’s natural heritage.

“These industry groups have a scary vision for our national forest,” stated Joseph Vaile, Program Director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) an Oregon-based conservation organization. “Never before have we seen extraction industries so clearly state that they oppose the use of science on our National Forests. Through this suit these groups hope the keys to our national forests are handed over to private industry so they can be turned into private tree-farms for their own benefit.”

“It comes as no surprise that the timber industry would like to see our National Forests managed for logging but it becomes truly bizarre when the timber industry must argue against science and in favor of crony capitalism in order to achieve their desired result,” said Doug Heiken, Conservation and Restoration Coordinator for Oregon Wild, another organization intervening.

Pete Frost, attorney for the conservation groups, stated, “This lawsuit, if successful, could effectively ban conservation biology as a basis to help craft how we manage our national forests. It is a throw-back to when only logging, grazing, and mining mattered.”

Groups Sue FS and EPA on Lead Bullets

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I thought it was interesting that CBD, the Sierra Club, and the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council are suing the FS apparently for RCRA violations… yet it seems from this Courthouse News Service article that they are already suing the EPA. since it appears that EPA is in charge of RCRA, and if in fact lead is bad for all the mammal-eating birds, then why should one national forest become the target?

Here’s what they said:

“Lead ingestion and poisoning from ammunition sources has been documented in many avian predators and scavengers that inhabit Forest Service land in Arizona, such as California condors, bald and golden eagles, northern goshawks, ferruginous hawks, turkey vultures, and common ravens,” the complaint states. “Many bird species are exposed to spent lead ammunition when they consume mammals that have been shot with lead ammunition but not retrieved and later die in the wild. These ‘shot but not retrieved’ carcasses are a food source for wild, free-ranging California condors in Arizona.”
The groups add: “The ingestion of spent lead ammunition, even in minute amounts, by wildlife causes many adverse behavioral, physiological and biochemical health effects, including seizures, lethargy, progressive weakness, reluctance to fly or inability to sustain flight, weight loss leading to emaciation, and death. The existence of such adverse health effects makes the wildlife experiencing them more susceptible to other forms of mortality, such as predation.”
The Center For Biological Diversity filed a similar lawsuit in the District of Columbia. There, it seeks judicial review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal to regulate the use of lead ammunition on public lands.

It seems to me like it should be clear where the authority to regulate lead ammunition rests, and the US taxpayer should only have to pay for one agency’s attorneys to defend it. Hopefully, I’m missing something here.

Sequoia National Monument.. So Few Trees, So Much Planning and Litigation

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Trail of 100 Giants, Forest Service photo

Thanks to Terry Seyden for this link.

Perhaps the Californians on this blog can help me. I can’t understand this story…

This is about the Sequoia National Monument- which has probably had more planning investment per acre than any other unit of the National Forest System.

Although the monument designation bans commercial logging, that didn’t stop the Forest Service from issuing a plan in 2004 that would have allowed enough timber cutting in the monument to fill more than 2,000 logging trucks a year — all in the name of reducing the risk of wildfire.

Although the new plan reduces the size of trees that can be felled, it allows the cutting of some young sequoias, no larger than a foot in diameter, and other trees as big as 20 inches in diameter to reduce fuel loads and promote ecological restoration. Any young sequoia trees that were felled would not be sold, the agency said. But other conifers and trees could be. The diameter limit would also not apply to trees considered a hazard along roads or in public areas.

I don’t understand how there can be a ban on commercial logging and trees can be sold.

The Forest Service’s long policy of fire suppression has been blamed for the decline of the sequoia groves. In the nearby Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, managers primarily use prescribed burns to create sequoia-friendly conditions.
Conservationists want the Forest Service to adopt the U.S. Park Service approach. But Elliott said that “fire alone is not going to fit the bill. Mechanical treatments are appropriate.” The many private holdings and small communities scattered across the forest demand more aggressive fuel reduction, he added.
Sequoia ForestKeeper has argued that the agency used the hazard tree provision to cut down commercially valuable old non-sequoias in 2005, when it removed about 200 trees near the popular Trail of 100 Giants and sold 67 of them as timber. Judging by the number of rings on the stump, Marderosian said one of the felled trees was 320 years old.
According to documents released Tuesday, mechanical tree thinning would be allowed on about 23% of the monument acreage. But Sierra Club staff attorney Kristin Henry said other provisions in the plan could potentially open the door to tree cutting on much more land.
“I’m just a little bit skeptical,” Henry said. “It seems as though this plan is geared to a lot of logging.”

Hmm they sold 67 non-sequoias identified as hazards in 2005.. it seems a bit of a micro-scale to me to be much of an issue. Again, there must be more to this story… maybe Californians can help provide some background. I’m also curious exactly what the judge said in this case and why.

FYI, in Colorado, we do cut trees (more than 67) and the State temporarily stopped doing prescribed fire, which these folks advocate because of the dangers.

Note: in browsing for a photo I found this neat picture gallery here of sequoia groves on the Sequoia National Forest.

800 Trees and 6.5 Acres .. Litigation.. and Mass Extinctions

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Popular skiing terrain on Burnt Mountain East. The area is outside of the Snowmass Ski Area’s operations boundary, but inside its permit boundary. The trail in question would allow skiers to access this terrain and then return to the Two Creeks base area. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith

I have been following this project (Burnt Mountain) and here is a link to a news story from Friday from the Aspen Times, and below is an excerpt.

So I am totally not a skier, so perhaps I don’t understand the complexities of why this could be good or bad in terms of safety. I do understand the idea of 6.5 acres and 800 trees, though, and I don’t understand how the Ark Initiative mission relates to 6.5 acres. And how the area around an old road could be special because it’s roadless…

I looked up the Ark Initiative here.. it seems to be concerned with the mass extinction of species. I’m just not getting the connection with 800 trees and 6.5 acres.

In an email earlier this month, Ark Initiative representative D.J. Duerr explained the organization’s position.

“Fitzwilliams could call this part of Burnt Mountain a parking lot if he likes, but that wouldn’t change the simple fact that this forested area contains no roads and is in the same wild and undeveloped condition as the immediately adjacent Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness,” Duerr said.

For The Ark Initiative, the dispute pertains to terrain beyond the egress.

“Around 2002, the USFS drew the original boundary for the ‘inventoried’ Burnt Mountain Roadless Area to exclude the exact area where Skico wanted to cut the new ski runs,” Duerr claimed. “It appears the ‘inventoried’ roadless boundary in this part of Burnt Mountain wasn’t based on whether the lands were actually roadless but on Skico’s desire to cut up this area for more profits. The Colorado Roadless Rule reclassifies even more of the roadless lands on Burnt Mountain out of ‘roadless’ status to facilitate the new ski runs.”

Fitzwilliams countered Thursday that the Forest Service spent six years on administrative analysis of Skico’s proposal and that two courts upheld the decision. He maintained that work on the egress is allowable, but he wanted the Forest Service attorneys to make sure the process was adequate in case of a challenge from The Ark Initiative.

“If we’re not going to affect roadless, I don’t know what the issue is,” Fitzwilliams said.

He also questioned the legitimacy of The Ark Initiative as an environmental organization. No local groups, such as Wilderness Workshop, have challenged the Forest Service decision, he noted.

Fitzwilliams suggested The Ark Initiative is a front from powder skiers who don’t want their stash turned into inbounds skiing.

“This isn’t about roadless,” Fitzwilliams said. “This is about fresh tracks at the bottom of the hill.”

In practical terms, the status of the traverse remains in limbo at least for this ski season.

“That is part of the area that is still under Forest Service review,” Skico spokesman Jeff Hanle said.

Burkley said Skico can work on a small portion of the 1,900-foot-long traverse from below and from above, but it can’t touch the middle 1,400 to 1,500 feet. The traverse, ironically following an old road, is 15 to 30 feet wide and steeper than Skico wants for intermediate customers.

“We don’t want to create a terrain trap where we suck people in,” he said. “For an expert skier, it’s not an issue.”

The new terrain will be accessed from Longshot. Skiers and riders will work to their right. The new terrain won’t be named.

“You’d be hard-pressed to identify any one run,” Burkley said.

Let me just add that skiers are not roads, and removing trees as part of “activities not otherwise prohibited” seems to be OK under the 2001 Roadless Rule. It’s just not clear to me why this is a Big Deal, related to extinctions of species, and worthy of expensive lawyer time for the plaintiffs, and, ineluctably, the taxpayer.

I’m with Scott.. something here simply doesn’t add up.

Here’s another article from 2009 (!) on the same subject and here’s a quote

Ark’s lawsuit contends that the Skico’s master plan amendment should have triggered studies on effects on roadless areas and on elk. The initial approval and environmental studies were performed in the early 1990s, so conditions might have changed, the group contended. As an example, it wanted a new study on the work’s potential impact on elk.

“If it’s a minor amendment, it might not need NEPA analysis,” Brawer said. “This wasn’t minor and [the initial approval] was old.”

Ark contends that the Forest Service analysis has been piecemeal and it has lost sight of the cumulative impacts on Burnt Mountain. It wants the ski area project blocked “until and unless” full-blown environmental studies are performed on Skico’s amendment to its master plan.

The Forest Service’s arguments essentially flip all the claims made by Ark. The agency said its review was cumulative and satisfied NEPA requirements. The project has no significant effect on elk or endangered species like lynx, the agency said. It wants the review to stand.

The two sides argued the case in Denver earlier this year before U.S. District Judge Walker Miller. It is unknown when a ruling will be made.

Here’s another article from 2011 about how the legal battle was “over”..

A trio of judges in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied an appeal on Nov. 8 in a lawsuit seeking to block the construction of an egress trail connecting lower Burnt Mountain East to Two Creeks, which was approved by the U.S. Forest Service in 2003.

The decision, written by Judge Paul Kelly, Jr., ends the legal process for the plaintiffs in the suit opposed to the trail, the Ark Initiative, Donald Duerr who is connected to the Ark Initiative, Paul “PJ” Smith, who works at the Gene Taylor’s ski shop in Snowmass Village and Alex Forsythe, a Florida resident who skis frequently on Burnt Mountain.

The U.S. Forest Service was the defendant in the suit and Aspen Skiing Company was not named.

However, Skico legal counsel David Bellack attended oral arguments recently in Denver just in case he was needed to support the Forest Service’s case.

It’s not clear yet what the resolution of the legal challenge to the trail means in terms of actually building the trail.

“We are aware the appeal was rejected but haven’t discussed anything internally regarding Burnt Mountain at this time,” said Aspen Skiing Company Vice President of Mountain Operations Rich Burkley.

The trail in question exists today in crude form, but the legal battle begin after the U.S. Forest Service approved a wider and formalized trail.

So.. people already go there and there are folks against something “wider and more formalized”; but it’s not a road and it’s bad for “roadless”??

Like I said, something just doesn’t add up.

OSHA cites MT Timber Mill for repeated safety violations

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According to an article in today’s Missoulian:
Tricon Timber LLC in St. Regis [Montana] has been cited for 27 safety violations after officials received a complaint in February, alleging workers had been injured there.  The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the sawmill for 25 serious and two repeat violations, carrying proposed penalties totaling $128,700….

This is the second time since February 2011 the millsite has been cited for violating several safety standards, including failing to guard augers in the boiler room and ensure that the shaft ends on stackers are guarded. The citations carry penalties of $48,510, a news release from OSHA said.

The 25 serious violations include failing to ensure that workers are protected from fall hazards by providing standard guardrails, include workers in a fully implemented respiratory protection program, provide adequate personal protective equipment, provide an eyewash and emergency shower station, implement a comprehensive energy control program and guard machines. The serious violation citations carry penalties of $80,190, the release said….

“Unfortunately, this employer is not taking the steps needed to ensure that workers have a safe and healthful workplace,” Jeff Funke said in the release. Funke is the agency’s area director in Billings. “In addition to a wide range of other dangers, Tricon Timber continues to expose workers to the same hazards cited last year, and OSHA is taking these repeat violations seriously.”

It should be noted that Tricon Timber, a frequent logger of national forest lands, was one of the Montana timber mills who in May 2012 took part in $30,000 worth of statewide newspaper ads attacking the Alliance for Wild Rockies and calling for an end to the public appeals process and exempting many Montana national forest timber sales from judicial review.  Perhaps instead of spending money to complain about environmentalists and supposed “frivolous lawsuits” the owners and managers of Tricon Timber should have taken steps to protect their workers from repeated safety violations.

Who Is Robert Kahn and Why is He Saying Those Things?

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Thanks to Matt Koehler for originally posting here. What I thought was interesting was the concept “Why should we care what Robert Kahn thinks?” What is his background, and what experience does he have in our world?

I did my usual internet search, found that there were a lot of Robert Kahns around, and that this one is the webpage editor for Courthouse News Service. Here’s their masthead.

One thing I’ve noticed about CNS is that many of the articles have what I call “snarky lawyer tone”. Now I don’t mean this to be offensive to lawyers, but in some cases in their culture, it is OK to have a tone that “other people are stupid and malevolent and we are smart and good.” It’s a style that you often see in appeals and litigation.

I remember one late night, a person was working on an appeal and wrote the response in the same tone “if the appellants had read the case they cited, they would understand that in fact…”. There wasn’t much I could do to help her, so I volunteered to “desnarkify” the response. Hype, snark, nastiness, snark, hype.

Having been brought up in the more genial groves of forest science, I find the tone.. well, nasty and offputting. And when I see hype, I tend to think “either that person has a casual acquaintance with the truth or they aren’t choosing to tell me the truth for some reason”. Either way, they are off my list of “people to whom I listen.”

So let’s deconstruct a bit of Kahn’s column.

Scientists are better than politicians because scientists want to know if they’re wrong.

Wow! I have worked in the science biz and it’s really, really not that simple. Scientists are human, and probably don’t want to know they’re wrong, if for example, they can’t get more funding or particularly if their archenemy turns out to be correct. Of course, it’s just silly to make these global statements anyway. I have met good scientist and good politicians and bad scientists and bad politicians (in the moral sense). I have noticed that a great deal of the “let science determine” the outcomes doesn’t actually come from scientists. In some cases, it comes from NGOs with many lawyers on their staffs and not too many scientists who know the “sausage-making”- like qualities of making science (usually we think of laws that way, but the scientific process is not always pretty, either).

Politicians – and their friends in the timber and cattle industries – don’t give a damn. So long as the money rolls in: to them.

That’s also pretty global. I worked on Capitol Hill (not sure that Robert ever did) and politicians get donations from timber folks and cattle folks and environmental folks (perhaps different politicians from different folks), but the point is.. oh, perhaps getting money from environmental groups is Good and Holy and getting money from timber and cattle folks is Evil and Venal.

I see 5,000 lawsuits a week editing the Courthouse News page – stories of rape, murder, drugs, perversion, official corruption – revolting stuff.
But the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week was from the timber and cattle industries, which claimed that scientists exert “improper influence” on the U.S. Forest Service, by seeking ecological sustainability above industry profits in National Forests.

I have to admit my stomach turned when someone says that an obtuse lawsuit against an obtuse planning rule is more obnoxious than rape and murder. Of course, “seeking ecological sustainability above industry profits” is an oversimplification.

The people litigating, in my view, are worried that some of the complicated language in the new rule could be interpreted by courts in silly ways to the detriment of the land and the people. Because, if things are fuzzy, then certain circuits and NGOs are going to make the determination-not based on the best policy but based on their interpretation of the fuzzy regulation-with a hefty dose of their own predilections in interpreting the fuzz. The litigants probably want the language to be clearer in the first place. I wonder if we could save lots of money by taking the phrases in question and having an open discussion about what we hope to achieve and what are our fears. That is what a FACA committee could have done for the rule-writing effort; people who differ speaking to each other directly and not each independently making their case to the FS.

Anyway, I just don’t see why folks can’t disagree without being nasty. And I really hate comparing rape or murder to interpreting the intersection of social, economic and “ecological” sustainability- a legalistic and paperworky exercise.

Judge dismisses timber industry lawsuit, maintains Tongass Forest Protection

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If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years you’ve likely noticed a significant amount of hand-wringing from some folks anytime conservation groups look to hold the U.S Forest Service accountable through the federal court system.  However, what I find somewhat interesting is that when the timber industry and their allies file a lawsuit against the Forest Service the type of hand-wringing we usually see directed at conservation groups is mysteriously non-existent.

Readers may recall that last week we highlighted a Courthouse News Service article, in which an editor claimed that a lawsuit against the Forest Service’s new National Forest Management Act planning rules by an assortment of timber industry, off-road/ATV and grazing interests was the “the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week.”

Well, it turns out that the Courthouse News Service had another article last week which frequent commenter and reader David Beebe was kind enough to pass along.  Highlights from the article are below, or you can read the entire article here.

A federal judge dismissed claims filed by the Alaskan timber and building industries that a 2008 forest plan reducing the amount of commercial forestland in the Tongass National Forest violated federal law.

The Alaska Forest Association and the Southern Southeast Alaska Building Industries Association sued U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and the U.S. Forest Service in 2008 over the Forest Service’s plan to reduce the amount of land available for commercial foresting from 2.4 million acres to 670,000.  The revised plan also adopted an adaptive strategy for managing lands for timber sale that the industries said reduced the acreage capable of supporting financially feasible timber sales to approximately 103,000 acres.

But because of a previous challenge to the plan filed by the Southeast Conference and several other Alaskan cities and municipal organizations that failed in federal court, U.S. District Judge John Bates dismissed this challenge under the legal doctrine of Res judicata, which prohibits re-filing legal claims that could have been litigated in prior actions.

The Alaska Forest Association, as it turns out, is a part of the Southeast Conference, and supported its similar litigation against the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service over the plan.
   The Forest Association, or AFA, unsuccessfully argued that because the Southeast Conference wasn’t aware it was representing the AFA, the doctrine does not apply.

“Plaintiffs’ argument is dubious on these facts,” stated Judge Bates. “AFA submitted an affidavit supporting Southeast Conference’s standing argument … which should have alerted the Southeast Conference plaintiffs that they were representing AFA.”

Courthouse News Service on Timber Industry’s “obnoxious” NFMA lawsuit

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Last week we highlighted the fact that an assortment of timber industry, off-road/ATV and grazing interests had filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service’s new National Forest Management Act planning rules.  Well, on Friday, Robert Kahn, editor of the Courthouse News Service, wrote a very interest column taking the timber and cattle industries, as well as politicians, to task for what he characterized as “the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week.”  You can read the entire column here, or check out the excerpts below.

Scientists are better than politicians because scientists want to know if they’re wrong.   Politicians – and their friends in the timber and cattle industries – don’t give a damn. So long as the money rolls in: to them.

I see 5,000 lawsuits a week editing the Courthouse News page – stories of rape, murder, drugs, perversion, official corruption – revolting stuff.  But the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week was from the timber and cattle industries, which claimed that scientists exert “improper influence” on the U.S. Forest Service, by seeking ecological sustainability above industry profits in National Forests.

Really. I’m not kidding.

Citing an 1897 law, a bunch of blood-sucking lobbyists with noble-sounding names such as the American Forest Resource Council, the Public Lands Council, [Montana Wood Products Association, BlueRibbon Coalition] and the California Forestry Association claimed that National Forests should be “‘controlled and administered’ for only two purposes – to conserve water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the American people – and not for aesthetic, environmental, recreational, or wildlife-preservation purposes.”

These public-land-dependent vampires claimed that this pathetically limp, spineless administration “is causing current and threatened injury” to industry by demanding ecological sustainability in forest management.

Isn’t that great?

Can you imagine anything more stupid, petty and grasping for the timber industry than suing the Forest Service for trying to preserve National Forests?

Their insane federal lawsuit claims – I’m not kidding – that the Forest Service “effectively trivializes public participation by forbidding decisions based on non-scientific information, which is what the great majority of public comments will contain. … The rule gives ‘scientists’ improper influence on natural resource management decisions, and skews multiple-use management by improperly elevating scientific information as the centerpiece of forest management.”

Notice how they put “scientists” in sneer quotes?

These industries have powerful friends in Congress, willing to howl this nonsense into our ears for as long as it takes until we stop paying attention, and they can grease it through.

Republicans in Congress live today, in great part, by attacking science: Darwin, genetics, climate change, medical research, even basic arithmetic are all nefarious plots against God and America.

But let’s remind you, and Congress too, if it can read: Science works because it’s based on facts. Scientists publish their research in journals because they want to see if someone can prove them wrong.

U.S. politicians today, more than at any time in our history except perhaps before the Civil War, not only do not care if they are wrong, they want to punch you in the mouth if you suggest it, and are willing to wreak untold damage upon anyone at all in the name of their myths.

Colt Summit: Researcher on Seeley Lake’s lynx and forest management

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We’ve obviously had a number of in-depth discussions and debates about the Lolo National Forests’s Colt Summit timber sale in the Seeley-Swan Valley of western Montana. However, something just arrived in my in-box this morning, which I thought would be good to highlight here for further discussion.

It’s a 2009 letter from John R. Squires
, Research Wildlife Biologist
 at the Rocky Mountain Research Station
 in Missoula in response to specific questions from a rural landscape scientist with Missoula County’s Rural Initiatives program.  The subject of the letter is lynx, and specifically lynx in the Seeley Lake area of western Montana.  As frequent readers of this blog will recall, Missoula County joined with The Wilderness Society, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, National Wildlife Federal, Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Wood Products Association, Montana Logging Association and others to file an amici brief in full and unequivocal support of the Forest Service’s Colt Summit timber sale.

However, despite the enthusiastic support of these collaborators, a federal district court judge issued the following ruling:

Summary judgment is granted in favor of the plaintiffs on their claim that the defendants violated NEPA by failing to adequately analyze the Colt Summit Project’s cumulative effects on lynx….

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this matter is REMANDED to the Forest Service so that it may prepare a supplemental environmental assessment consistent with this order and the law.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the defendants are enjoined from implementing the Colt Summit Project while the proceedings required on remand are pending.

Squires 2009 letter provides some more information regarding lynx in general, but also specifically about lynx in the Seeley Lake area and how these lynx – and their habitat – are impacted by forest management practices such as logging and “thinning.”   Of particular interest is that Squires states that “The Seeley Lake area represents some of the most important lynx habitat in Montana.”  And also, “[L]ynx are very sensitive to forest management, especially forest thinning.  Thinning reduces habitat quality for lynx with effects lasting up to several decades.”

Finally, there’s this tidbit of information from Squires, “[T]here is likely a threshold of thinning below which lynx will not be able to persist. The extent of forest thinning and forest fragmentation around Seeley in the last 5 years is of concern for lynx in western Montana.  Preliminary analysis of population viability suggest that lynx in the Seeley area may be declining, so concerns for maintaining available habitat does have a scientific basis.”

Below are some excerpts from Squires letter (please note that the added emphasis is mine):

We have studied lynx in western Montana for a decade and my answers are based on our understanding gained during this research.  I will focus my comments on our scientific understanding realizing that results from this research may have policy implications.  You asked the following questions:

1) What information can you provide about the importance of the Seeley Lake area to lynx, especially in regards to the Northern Rockies?



Since the federal listing of Canada lynx in 2000, it has become clear that Canada lynx have a very limited distribution in the contiguous United States. Other than Montana, native populations are only found in Washington, Maine, and small populations in Minnesota and Wyoming that may consist of only a few individuals. Lynx in western Montana represents possibly the most viable native population in the contiguous United States and it is a primary focus of conservation planning for the species….The Seeley Lake area represents some of the most important lynx habitat in Montana. The areas surrounding Seeley Lake are not only central to the conservation and management of Canada lynx in western Montana, but also to the management of the species in the contiguous United States. 



Lynx avoid low elevation, dry forest types and the open high elevation tundra habitats. Lynx are restricted to high elevation, spruce-fir forests, like those found around Seeley Lake. We compared habitat characteristics found in 59 lynx home ranges to 500 random areas of similar size. We found that lynx preferentially select home ranges with low topographic roughness; they generally avoid the very steep topographies like the central portions of Glacier National Park and parts of the Bob Marshall Complex. Instead, lynx preferentially select spruce-fir forests found in more rolling topographies, like those found in Seeley Lake and in the Purcell Mountains north of Libby, MT.  These boreal landscapes are rare in western Montana and they are the landscapes most impacted by forest management. The spruce-fir forests that surround Seeley Lake are readily used by lynx (Figure 1). The future management of these forests will be important to the species’ recovery.

Figure 1. GPS locations of Canada lynx using lands surrounding Seeley Lake, Montana.

2) How have lynx persisted in Seeley Lake despite extensive timber harvesting and recreation?

Based on 10 years of research in western Montana, we recognize that lynx occupy a very narrow habitat niche due to their highly-specialized, morphological adaptations for hunting snowshoe hares in deep-snow. During winter, lynx hunt preferentially in mature, multi-layer, spruce-fir forests. In summer, lynx remain in their same home ranges, but they broaden their niche to also include young regenerating forests that contain dense horizontal cover. Lynx are almost completely dependent on snowshoe hares (96% winter food biomass) for food, and the abundance of hares is directly rated to the amount of horizontal cover provided by forests vegetation. Therefore, lynx are very sensitive to forest management, especially forest thinning.  Thinning reduces habitat quality for lynx with effects lasting up to several decades.

Although lynx are sensitive to forest management, they do persist in the Seeley Lake area and other managed landscapes, provided that a mosaic of suitable habitat is available, including a high abundance of un-thinning forests. Landscapes that offer a mosaic of forest age and structure classes provide habitat for denning and foraging. Although substantial forest thinning has occurred in the Seeley Lake area, lynx have been able to use un-thinned habitats. However, there is likely a threshold of thinning below which lynx will not be able to persist. The extent of forest thinning and forest fragmentation around Seeley in the last 5 years is of concern for lynx in western Montana.  Preliminary analysis of population viability suggest that lynx in the Seeley area may be declining, so concerns for maintaining available habitat does have a scientific basis.