Federal District Court Determines Red Lodge and the Greater Red Lodge Area Vegetation and Habitat Management Project are Both in the Wildland-Urban Interface
However, ruling states USFS must put Canfield or lynx provisions through EIS process before moving forward
In an Order issued in United States District Court by the Honorable Dana L. Christensen on August 23, the United States Forest Service prevailed on two issues before the Court in the case known as Alliance For The Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council (Plaintiffs) vs. United States Forest Service et al. (Defendants). The Plaintiffs prevailed on the remaining issue. The Greater Red Lodge Area Vegetation and Habitat Management Project (Project) is on hold until the USFS addresses “the deficiencies identified in this Order.”
In summary, the Court found that USFS properly designated the Project as within the wildland-urban interface; that the Project Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) properly evaluated the cumulative effects of the Palisades Timber Sale; and that the EIS improperly relied on a methodology (Canfield 2016) used to determine Canada lynx habitat. That methodology has not gone through proper review. Before moving forward with the Project, either Canfield 2016 or the portions of the Project that rely on Canfield 2016 need to undergo a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Defendants’ arguments that other portions of the Project (such as the Palisades Timber Sale) be allowed to move forward to protect the area from wildfire while the lynx habitat issue is resolved were denied by the judge who wrote, “To allow the Project to move forward while such a core component of the EIS is reconsidered would be to trivialize the statutory directives of NEPA and the APA (Administrative Procedure Act).”
In response to the ruling, Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, wrote, “It’s absolutely one of the worst places in the country for clearcuts. So we’re thrilled that the Court agreed with us and halted the logging project. But going even further, the Court’s Order vacated the Forest Service’s approval of this logging and road-building project that would have clearcut federally-designated lynx Critical Habitat in the Beartooth Mountains, which are part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem just west of Red Lodge, Montana and north of Yellowstone National Park.”
The Project was proposed by USFS in the course of its duties to manage the forest in a way that maintains ecological balance while protecting people as well as cultural and civic landmarks and structures. Their management decisions are guided by NEPA (which requires federal agencies to prepare a detailed EIS for any “major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment”) and APA (which, among other things, determines if an agency’s decisions are “arbitrary and capricious). In addition to these and other considerations, the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) mandates that USFS “develop, maintain, and, as appropriate, revise land and resource management plans for units of the National Forest System, coordinated with the land and resource management planning processes of State and local governments and other Federal agencies.” NFMA requires forest plans to “include coordination of outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, wildlife and fish, and wilderness” while they provide “for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability of the specific land area in order to meet overall multiple-use objectives.”
According to the Court Order, “The Project authorizes logging and thinning activities on approximately 21,871 acres in Carbon County, Montana, on the Beartooth Ranger District of the Custer Gallatin National Forest.
The goal of the Project is to reduce wildfire hazard in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). The Forest Service used the Carbon County Community Wildfire Protection Plan map as a reference to define the WUI. The Plaintiffs argued that the proposed project “is not even remotely close to the City of Red Lodge”. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA) defines the WUI as “an area within or adjacent to an at-risk community that is identified in recommendations to the Secretary in a community wildfire protection plan.” According to the Court ruling, HFRA further defines an “at-risk community” as either “an area…that is comprised of…an interface community” as defined by federal regulation, or “a group of homes and other structures with basic infrastructure and services…within or adjacent to Federal land.” The Court determined the use of the County map in this case did not alter the project acceptability under HFRA and confirmed that Red Lodge is correctly designated as an “at-risk” community.
In 2007, the Northern Rockies Lynx Management Direction (NRLMD) amended the forest plans of Custer Gallatin National Forest (CGNF) as well as 17 other forests. This Direction included a new map of lynx habitat in the CGNF. However, this map was provided with the expectation that “[d]uring site-specific project analysis, maps of lynx habitat [will] be reviewed and updated based on local information.” In updating the map for this project, USFS referenced a Forest Service white paper titled “Updating the lynx habitat map layer using the latest corporate standardized data and state-of-the-art GIS technology” (Canfield 2016). The methodology as applied reduced lynx habitat by 88,000 acres in the Custer portion of the forest and increased lynx habitat by 69,000 acres in the Gallatin portion. In a letter dated November 24, 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “concurs with the determinations that the proposed action is not likely to adversely affect the threatened grizzly bear, the threatened Canada lynx, or designated critical habitat for Canada lynx.” Even so, it was determined by the Court that the map delineating the Canada lynx habitat needs to go through the NEPA approval process before the Project can proceed.
The final issue was the allegation that the Defendant failed “to consider the cumulative effects of a state-authorized timber sale adjacent to the project boundary - the Palisades Timber Sale. The Court found that USFS did properly consider those cumulative effects.
The Forest Service is reviewing the Court’s ruling and will decide in the near future whether they will appeal or accept the ruling. They are reserving further comment until the lawsuit is complete.