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BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Two conservation groups have asked a federal judge for an injunction to temporarily stop a salvage logging project in a national forest near the Selway and Middle Fork Clearwater rivers in northern Idaho.
Idaho Rivers United and Friends of the Clearwater filed the motion last week as part of their lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Forest Service seeking to stop the project that aims to harvest about 34 million board feet of timber scorched by wildfire.
The groups contend in the lawsuit filed in early March that the Forest Service's approval of the 2,100-acre project violates the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act that's intended to preserve free-flowing rivers with outstanding natural and recreational characteristics.
"The project activities threaten serious and irreversible harms to water quality, endangered fish habitat, and Wild and Scenic values," the groups say in the motion seeking the injunction.
The groups say potential harm to federally protected steelhead, salmon and bull trout from sediment as a result of logging hasn't been adequately considered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also named in the lawsuit.
A wildfire burned more than 20 square miles in 2014, mostly on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. The Forest Service wants to start salvage logging in the middle of May.
Joyce Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, said the agency doesn't comment on litigation. Speaking in general, she said burned trees tend to lose value the longer salvage logging is delayed.
"The timing of salvage timber sales is always critical," she said. "The sooner you can salvage it, the more value you get from the timber, which will help with reforestation and other rehab activities on the fire."
At issue is salvage logging in an area following the 2014 fire. But the motion for the injunction also notes 2015 wildfires that burned another 73 square miles.
The groups say that in 2015 about 15 miles of the Selway Wild and Scenic River corridor burned between the proposed logging project and Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness boundary, and that the Forest Service is proposing salvage logging there also.
The groups have not said whether they plan legal action concerning that potential salvage logging.
On a related front involving Idaho Rivers United and the same 2014 wildfire, a federal judge ruled late last month that the Forest Service erred in deciding Idaho officials planning a salvage logging project on state land didn't need a special use permit to use a road that crosses private property within a Wild and Scenic River corridor.
The Forest Service gave the state the OK to use the road, saying it was public, but the court ruled that the Forest Service failed to consider requirements of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act pertaining to the Selway River.
After the court granted an injunction in that case, Idaho officials sidestepped the road by going ahead with helicopter logging on 167 acres.
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