Utah Environmental Congress:
In The News

Environmental Group Holds Up Fishlake Logging

Wildlife Worries:  An appeals court OKs delaying project until dispute over impact to birds is resolved

By Joe Baird
The Salt Lake Tribune

An environmental group has been granted an emergency stay by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt, at least temporarily, a logging project on the Fishlake National Forest.

The Utah Environmental Congress (UEC) received the stay late last week to stop work on the Seven Mile timber sale, about 10 miles north of Fish Lake.

The Forest Service approved the project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forest Initiative to control an advanced beetle outbreak.  But the UEC argued that the Forest Service in approving the sale disregarded potential negative impacts on the three-toed woodpecker and northern goshawk, a pair of species that the group says already is struggling to remain viable.

"The Healthy Forest Initiative projects that impact threatened or endangered species require some sort of environmental review," UEC Executive Director Kevin Mueller said Friday.  "The Forest Service believes it can ignore these impacts.  In our opinion, that's illegal."

Forest Service officials were unavailable for comment Friday afternoon.

The Forest Service initially approved the timber sale with an environmental assessment in 2000.  The UEC won an administrative appeal of that decision when the regional office ruled the environmental assessments regarding wildlife were inadequate under federal law.

The Healthy Forest Initiative allows the Forest Service to streamline such requirements, but Mueller says some form of environmental assessment is still mandatory, citing Reagan-era regulations requiring that "viable" wildlife populations must be maintained. 

"The point is not to delay the project, but to ensure that it protects wildlife and habitat while still achieving the goals of the project," Mueller said.  "We think that's possible.  The Forest Service is just resisting that analysis."

Published in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 30, 2005