Citing poor management, a statewide environmental group has filed a federal lawsuit                                      against the Uinta National Forest.

The Utah Environmental Congress filed the suit Oct. 27 against the Dixie,                                              Manti-La Sal, Wasatch-Cache and Uinta national forests, saying the                                                     forests have continually failed to gather information on population trends of certain                                     species used to monitor the health of the forests.

In Uinta National Forest, the lawsuit seeks to stop a timber sale of 2 million                                           board feet -- enough to fill 400 logging trucks -- in the White River area of                                         Spanish Fork Canyon, said Kevin Mueller, program coordinator for the                                                  Utah Environmental Congress.

Forest managers are required by their own forest management plan to track the                               population of several species of animals called a "management indicator species,"                                    Mueller said. The population of those animals is then used as a gauge of the health                                          of a particular area of the forest.

In the left fork of the White River area of Spanish Fork Canyon, the threatened Colorado                         cutthroat trout was the indicator species that forest managers choose to track, he said.

"The basic concept is that there is a mandate for all national forests to make                                             sure timber sales and road construction do not affect the biodiversity of fish, wildlife                                  and plants," Mueller said. "Instead of trying to track the population of all animals and                             plants in the forest, they set up a shortcut which is to monitor management indicator species.

"They have to first monitor the fish and then determine the population trend, for example                          how many fish per mile. A couple of years later you monitor again and you see if the                            population has improved or decreased."

Population increases or decreases are then compared to logging efforts and other                      environmental impacts to see if those activities are having a negative affect on the species, he said.

"The reason why we named Uinta National Forest and the White River timber sale is                             because they don't have a single year of data to even determine a base line for this trout                               in the left fork of White River," he said. "They are supposed to have trend data but                                   they don't have any data."

Erin O'Connor of the Forest Service Intermountain Region Office in Ogden                                               declined to go into detail for this story.

"We have received the complaint but I'm not able to comment on it," she said.                                              "When things are in litigation we just go about the work that we need to do in the courts."

Mueller said Colorado cutthroat are a significant environmental monitor because                                      they've been reduced to 5 percent of their historic range. Eroding stream banks and                                 logging on islands of private land inside the forest have already degraded the fish's habitat.

"Every population (of the fish) is considered absolutely crucial," he said.

Mueller said that similar federal lawsuits have been very successful.                                                          The Utah Environmental Council sued and won a case in Utah Federal District                                          Court in 2001, stopping the 25-million-board-foot South Manti timber sale on the                                Manti-La Sal National Forest.

The UEC also sued the Fishlake National Forest and won at the 10th Circuit                                            Court of Appeals earlier this year, stopping another 8-million-board-foot timber                                             sale on Monroe Mountain, Fishlake National Forest.

"We would like the forest to withdraw their decision and go out and collect the                                          required population trend data and see what kind of effect their existing timber                                        sales have had on the population of plants and animals," he said.

In addition to the White River timber sale, the five other projects named in the                                           latest lawsuit include the Bear Hodges II and East Fork timber sales on the                                      Wasatch-Cache National Forest, the Dark Valley timber sale on the Dixie National                              Forest, and the South Manti timber sale and East Mountain road construction projects                                   on the Manti-La Sal National Forest.

"Failure to determine the effects of these projects on the diversity of wildlife                                                  populations is serious, especially considering the fact that this involves harvest of                                approximately 41 million board feet of timber, which would fill about 8,200                                                    log trucks, and require many miles of road construction, one of which is inside                                                an Inventoried Roadless Area," Mueller said.

Caleb Warnock can be
reached at 344-2543 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C1.

Group files against Forest Service

Published November 2, 2004

A Utah environmental group has filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service, claiming the agency continues to ignore provisions of the National Forest Management Act as they relate to monitoring wildlife population trends.
   The Utah Environmental Congress last week filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against the Dixie, Manti-La Sal, Wasatch-Cache and Uinta National Forests. The suit alleges that each has failed to gather population trend data through their Management Indicator Species process, which measures the impacts of timber and road construction projects on wildlife and fish habitat.
   The suit is similar to earlier complaints the UEC filed against the Manti-La Sal and Fishlake National Forests in 2001 and 2002, respectively. The former stopped a 25 million board-foot South Manti timber sale; the latter, upheld by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, halted an 8 million board-foot timber sale on Monroe Mountain, said UEC program coordinator Kevin Mueller.
   "The statute is very clear on this, but the Forest Service is a huge bureaucracy and it's slow to change," Mueller said Monday. "Right now, they are under huge pressure from the Bush administration to extract natural resources, and are failing to exercise proper oversight."
   Mueller calls the Management Indicator Species (MIS) process a "shortcut" in the National Forest Management Act. Instead of analyzing a whole range of animal and plant species when evaluating timber or road projects, he said, the MIS allows Forest Service officials to identify a "bellwether" species that acts as a proxy for other forms of wildlife and habitat that inhabit the forest.
   However, he said, "the national forests are still not gathering the population data and using it like they are supposed to. That's why we included all four national forests in this lawsuit. The direction is clear from the Utah federal court and the 10th Circuit: This is something that has to be adhered to."
   Adds Joel Ban, Wildlaw Southwest attorney for the UEC: "Failure of the . . . MIS management shortcut means the national forests across our state are approving timber sales and new road construction projects without actually determining what the effects . . . will be on the population of animals and plants."
   U.S. Forest Service officials were mum on the lawsuit. A spokeswoman said they could not comment because they had just received the complaint and not yet read it entirely.