Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Local Residents Halt Northern Idaho Logging Project in Old Growth Forest and Grizzly Bear Habitat

Hanna Flats, Idaho Panhandle National Forest. Photo: Paul Sieracki.

Seven long years ago the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, with the support of local residents, took the Forest Service to federal court to halt the Hanna Flats logging, road-building, and burning project on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. Through a long and winding legal saga the good news — for grizzly bears, old growth forests, and the local populace which strongly opposed the deforestation — is that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled for the Alliance, halting the project and requiring the Forest Service to follow the law as written, not the agency’s arbitrary interpretation.

The project, supposedly to reduce wildfire risk, is located in the habitat of the imperiled Selkirk grizzly bears, which are in dire straits having been reduced to a mere 50 bears when the minimum needed for recovery is 100 bears. The bears suffer from human-caused mortality at unsustainable rates and are regularly displaced and harmed from logging and road-building in their habitat.

Ignoring the fact that grizzly bears are protected by the Endangered Species Act, the Forest Service authorized 2,203 acres of logging, 139 acres of burning, and incorporated 30.4 miles of illegally-constructed roads the agency classified as “temporary” and intended to use for logging roads.

The agency then used what the Court found to be an illegal definition of the Wildland Urban Interface to claim the project was “categorically excluded” from conducting an environmental assessment and providing the public the opportunity for review, comment, and objection.

Contrary to Forest Service claims that the logging was necessary to protect communities from wildfire, the upper Priest River area’s bowl-shaped topography captures cold air in the low elevations and traps cool moist air in the summer. The low elevation winter snowpack is deeper and more persistent than elsewhere in northern Idaho, and summertime conditions are relatively moist and cool compared to neighboring areas. Hence, the area is not as susceptible to wildfires.

The Court found that the Forest Service had used a “key assumption” that the Project is located within a wildland-urban interface but improperly applied Bonner County’s definition of a wildland-urban interface, which is a broader definition unmoored from the specifics of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act.”

This is a big win for endangered grizzly bears, but in addition to protecting the grizzly bears, the Court’s ruling also protects the rights of the homeowners in this area who strongly opposed the massive clearcutting operations that would destroy the forests around their homes and trails and lead to harmful sedimentation of rivers and streams. Throughout the years of litigation, the local residents bravely stood up and spoke truth to power to protect their home. There is no doubt that their resistance and strength helped bring about this victory.

There is really no hope of recovering this imperiled grizzly population as required by the Endangered Species Act unless the government starts complying with the law. This court decision is one step in the right direction — clearly demanding that government agencies must follow the law just like everyone else.

The fight to save our forests and grizzly bears is not over, however, since the Appeals Court sent the case back to the federal district court of Idaho for further review. It is not easy to fight the federal government, especially under Trump, but the Alliance wins 80% of our lawsuits and we need your help to keep winning, keep our forests standing and our wildlife from going extinct. This victory is even more important since the Trump administration declared the federal government no longer has to protect habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Please consider helping the Alliance for the Wild Rockies force the Forest Service to follow the law by making a donation to help us pay our attorney to continue to represent us. Please also consider donating to Counterpunch so they can continue to fight the power..

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.