Another judge stops another timber sale

A federal judge filed a lengthy opinion Wednesday explaining his decision last month to block the Colt-Summit timber sale, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service’s analysis of the project’s cumulative effects on lynx – as required by the National Environmental Policy Act – was not sufficient. The Forest Service will now have to conduct that analysis before the plan can move forward. The proposed timber sale is located in the Seeley-Swan Valley off of Montana Highway 83. The 46-page opinion by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy comes on the heels of a June 20 order granting summary judgment on one issue raised by a host of conservation groups that sued the Forest Service in an effort to halt the Colt-Summit project: That the Forest Service “violated NEPA by failing to adequately analyze the project’s cumulative impacts on lynx.” The plaintiffs are Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, Native Ecosystems Council and Montana Ecosystems Defense Council. Although Molloy ruled that Colt-Summit complied with lynx critical habitat standards, inland native fish strategy standards and Endangered Species Act protections for lynx, bull trout and grizzly bears, he said it needed more work on the NEPA evaluation...more

You can read the decision here.