Economic costs top legal costs in timber suits

A recent study of the costs of litigation in Forest Service timber contracts found that economic impacts to local communities far outweighed the costs of attorneys and analysis. The study by Todd Morgan and John Baldridge at the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research looked at impacts across the U.S. and Region 1 but focused on one case study — the Spotted Bear River Project at the south end of the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Economic impacts caused by litigation to stop this project were estimated to be a loss of 136 jobs and $10 million in income and taxes. The goals of the 50,000-acre Spotted Bear River Project included maintaining and improving forest health, timber productivity, recreational values on a Wild and Scenic River Corridor, and access at two trailheads. The project called for harvesting about 7.3 million board-feet of timber on 1,193 acres, thinning on 660 acres and prescribed burning on 1,346 acres. Scoping for the project began in November 2009. Litigation began in February 2012 when the Friends of the Wild Swan and The Swan View Coalition filed suit in federal court in Missoula. The plaintiffs claimed a full-blown environmental impact statement was needed and that inadequate analysis had been completed on the cumulative impacts to endangered and threatened species, including wolverines, lynx and grizzly bears. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch ruled in favor of the Forest Service on June 3, 2013, and the Tin Mule Timber Sale portion of the project was awarded 16 days later. The plaintiffs filed for a temporary restraining order to block the sale the next day. On July 8, 2013, District Court Judge Dana Christensen ruled not to grant the temporary restraining order. The plaintiffs appealed his decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2013, and the appellate court upheld Christensen a year later.About half the Tin Mule sale was completed by February 2015, and a second timber sale for the project will be awarded in fiscal year 2016. According to Morgan and Baldridge, direct costs of the litigation were about $95,000 to the Forest Service and $4,500 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They also found that Forest Service personnel spent 1,833 hours working on litigation for the Spotted Bear case instead of other projects. Nationwide, Morgan and Baldridge found that attorney fees and Equal Access To Justice Act fees paid to prevailing private parties in 738 Forest Service cases from 2003 to 2013 came to $7.7 million. Region 1 had the most cases — 133 cases costing more than $1 million. “The relatively high frequency of litigation in Region 1 and the protracted duration (often one to two years) of litigated cases certainly contribute to agency workload, cost and uncertainty, as well as uncertainty and related economic impacts for loggers, mills and communities near the forests,” they reported...more