Suit: USFS skirted law on timber sale

Two environmental groups are claiming in a lawsuit that officials with the Helena National Forest coaxed a state agency into changing the designation of an area as elk winter range in order to get a timber sale near Elliston under way. In the complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council say they have copies of e-mails that show the federal agency pressured Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials to “help them evade the law” by changing the elk designation from winter range to summer range. The two groups claim that with the change by FWP, the Forest Service won’t have to comply with its own requirements for projects on elk winter range, and it will allow the federal agency to move forward more easily with the 763-acre tree-thinning project...more