Documents detailing an environmental assessment study related to a timber sale on Forest Service lands were not appropriately made available to the public, says one Utah forest advocate.

The Utah Environmental Congress, a nonprofit corporation based in Salt Lake City, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Dixie National Forest, as an entity of the U.S. Forest Service, charging the agency did not follow policy that is required when making decisions that deal with public lands.

The organization is asking for a reversal of a recent decision to approve a timber sale in the Escalante Ranger District of the forest, which would ultimately remove 3 million board feet of timber. It is "concerned about the plight of the Dixie National Forest and the destruction of any part of it through improper and illegal timber cutting decisions or other projects that destroy native forests," the complaint says.

It is not uncommon for the UEC to object to timber sales, but in this case, it is more concerned about the process that was used to decide on the timber sale. Members of the UEC worry that the statutes and regulations, designed to protect public lands and the public interest, are being abused.

USDA Forest Service declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The UEC credits itself with protecting and preserving Utah's national forests and native wildlife, and in this case hopes to gain redress for specific issues it believes were overlooked in an environmental assessment recently performed on the area. Such issues include the use of magnesium chloride as a road treatment to keep dust down and prescribed burns to create a fire line that could possibly affect the air quality in the nearby protected airsheds of Bryce National Park and Capitol Reef National Park.

UEC says these issues were only lightly addressed in the study and that the public did not have "adequate opportunity" to comment or to provide feedback, as it is entitled under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Forest Service decision not to circulate the study to the public, UEC claims, says, was "an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with the law."

The suit asks that officials reassess the environmental impact of the proposed projects and to make those findings available to the public as required by law.

E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com