Lawsuit filed to stop logging and road-building in Bozeman’s Watershed and East Boulder Creek

According to Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, all of the trees in this picture that are not painted orange will be cut down as part of the Bozeman Watershed logging project. Photo by Cottonwood Environmental Law Center.

A copy of the complaint can be found here.  Meanwhile, a copy of the press release from the plaintiffs is printed below and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle’s article can be found here.

Weekend Update: An attorney with the Cottonwood Environmental Law Center – who happens to live directly next to the Bozeman Watershed logging project area – provided this very enlightening comment over the weekend, which deserves to be highlighted here:

I helped write the administrative appeal for the enviro groups on the first round of this. We won on soils issues. I submitted a FOIA request for the project record on the BMW project back in 2010.

Here is language from the agency’s hydrologist that I found in an internal document:

The BMW implemented assumes that the BMW treated acres are totally within
the wildfire area so the reduced %>natural figures are probably an over estimation of potential sediment reduction since the wildfires would burn areas outside of BMW treatment boundaries and not all areas within BMW treatment areas would be subjected to wildfire.

Bottom line is that the BMW project, if fully implemented, could result in a modest reduction in sediment yields from a moderate to large size wildfire in either watershed. Since the sediment standard is 30% over natural for each drainage the resulting sediment yields would still be well over standard and pose a challenge to the Bozeman Municipal Water Treatment Plant.

Mark T. Story
Hydrologist
Gallatin National Forest
PO 130 Bozeman, Mt
59771
406-587-6735
mtstory@fs.fed.us

This project is particularly troubling for me because it is nearly adjacent to my home, which is in Cottonwood Canyon, the drainage west of Hyalite. The agency is seeking to log in Cottowood. How is sediment going to be reduced by logging in a different drainage that is six miles away from a reservoir? I bowhunt for deer and elk in the Cottonwood side of the project area. This project will destroy my hunting grounds.

I took photos of the project area, approximately six miles away from the drainage in the Cottonwood side. The photos are on our website: http://cottonwoodlaw.org/work.html

Finally, The Wilderness Society submitted comments against this project years ago. They had a former UM soil scientist working for them that heavily criticized the project. They just aren’t talking about it now because it would be politically unpopular and they are worried about funding.

Bozeman, MT –The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in Federal District Court against two proposed logging and road-building projects.  The Bozeman Municipal Watershed (BMW) timber sale is a 10-year logging project which authorizes more than 3,000 acres of logging, including 200 acres within the Gallatin Fringe Inventoried Roadless Area, 1,575 acres of prescribed burning, and 7.1 to 8.2 miles of new road construction.  The East Boulder Timber sale would authorize 650 acres of logging and 2.1 miles of new road construction.

“The last thing you want to do in a healthy watershed is bulldoze in 7 miles of new logging roads,” said Michael Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.  “This is the fifth time the Forest Service has tried to push the Bozeman Watershed timber sale which has been successfully challenged four times since the 90s, including our successful administrative appeal last April.  Simply stated, the agency’s proposal breaks a number of laws and this time around is no different.”

The groups also say the two timber sales would log lynx critical habitat, core grizzly bear habitat, and destroy habitat for other old growth dependent species.  “The two timber sales do not comply with the best available scientific threshold to maintain open road densities of one mile or less per square mile of habitat in grizzly bear habitat,” Garrity said.  “Moreover, the logging and road building will also dump sediment into creeks that contain native westslope cutthroat trout, Montana’s State Fish, which is already listed as a ‘Species of Special Concern’ due to habitat destruction and rapidly declining populations.”

“The Forest Service is determined to force bulldozers, logging trucks and helicopters into the Sourdough Creek, Hyalite Creek and South Cottonwood Creek drainages,” said Steve Kelly.  “We are equally determined to protect the outstanding wildlife habitat, water quality and recreational opportunities these federal public lands provide to Bozeman residents and visitors who rightfully expect to encounter nature in a peaceful and quiet forest landscape.”

“Bozeman Creek and Hyalite Creek are already listed as ‘impaired,’ meaning they’re not in compliance with state water quality standards or the provisions of the federal Clean Water Act,” Kelly explained.  “Yet, despite an already degraded aquatic environment, this project will increase sediment loads in the streams both during and after logging.  Sediment sources from past logging projects should be cleaned up first to protect both native westslope cutthroat trout and Bozeman’s drinking water supply from harmful sediment pollution.”

“The supreme irony of this project is that while Montana’s fish and wildlife agency is spending tons of money struggling to recover the population of this native fish and keep it from being listed as an Endangered Species, the federal government is promoting the primary cause of its decline — more logging and sedimentation in its remaining range,” concluded Kelly.

Sara Jane Johnson, PhD., is the Director of the Native Ecosystems Council and a former Gallatin National Forest wildlife biologist.  Johnson contends the Forest Service is converting its emphasis for both areas to fuels management, which violates the agency’s own Forest Plan.

“The Forest Service loves fuels management because it promotes logging – and now, apparently nothing else matters,”  Johnson said, noting that the federal agency is ignoring the adverse impacts the timber sales will have on water quality, fish, wildlife, and recreation.  “The Bozeman watershed timber sale is scheduled to last 10 years. What that means is that the people of Bozeman are going to have to deal with logging trucks, road building and helicopters in their favorite back yard recreation area for the next decade.”

Johnson also says that the increase in road density will adversely affect grizzly bears and lynx, which violates the Endangered Species Act.  “Under the Gallatin National Forest Service’s lynx conservation strategy, 55,000 acres of lynx critical habitat can be logged before they claim there is any impact to lynx, “ Johnson continued. “This is an insane, irrational extinction strategy, not a recovery strategy. The government is supposed to work to protect lynx critical habitat, not destroy it.”

“If we want to recover the grizzly bear and lynx and remove them from the Endangered Species list, they need secure habitat on public land,” Johnson explained.  “Otherwise they will be forced onto private land where they often end up dead.”

“The Forest Service is also ignoring all road density standards for grizzly bears” Johnson concluded.  “The last place the agency should build more roads is in critical lynx habitat and occupied grizzly bear habitat – especially when it is also Bozeman’s municipal watershed.”

The East Boulder project is being litigated for many of the same reasons, Garrity explained, “except in addition to more road building, the Forest Service also blatantly ignores its own Forest Plan requirements to preserve big game winter range standards.”

“The Project area contains important winter range for mule deer and moose,” Garrity continued.  “The Forest Plan requires the Forest Service to manage big game winter range to meet the forage and cover needs of deer, elk, moose, and other big game species. Winter range provides important canopy cover that intercepts snow, blocks wind, and reduces snow crusting, making movement for big game less difficult.”

“The elimination of hundreds of acres of winter range in the project area coupled with the disturbance effects of winter logging will negatively affect the already below-average population of mule deer in violation of the Forest Plan, the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act,” Garrity concluded.  “We have been involved in every step of this process, made the agency aware of our concerns and it continues to push the projects forward.  So now, for the good of the fish, wildlife, big game and water quality, we’re forced to take them to court.  It’s not something we prefer to do, but in the end, judicial review is part and parcel of our system of government and we are using it to challenge the government’s actions exactly as it was intended.”