Conservation groups suing to halt a controversial logging project in far northwest Montana argue that the U.S. Forest Service improperly analyzed the project’s impacts to grizzly bears, and also failed to publicly disclose parts of the analysis.
The groups, which include Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council, argue that the Kootenai National Forest failed to account for illegal use of roads that are blocked to prevent public motorized access. The 91,647-acre project is a mix of commercial logging, thinning and prescribed burning stretching from Yaak to the Canadian border.
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When analyzing how the project would change the amount of land with or without open roads in grizzly habitat, the groups argue, the Forest Service must analyze the real-world motorized usage of roads to the best of its understanding — including illegal road use — not just which roads are designated as open to motorized use.
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Grizzly bears tend to die in or abandon roaded forests, according to numerous studies collected by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.
Earlier in January, the groups sued the U.S. Forest Service in U.S. District Court in Missoula over the project. On Friday, the groups asked the court to either vacate the Forest Service’s June 2022 approval of the project, or issue an injunction to prevent project implementation, and order the agency to conduct further analysis.
The Forest Service does not comment on active litigation.
Friday’s brief outlined three primary points on which the groups believe the Forest Service’s environmental assessment for the Black Ram project is illegally flawed: that the agency violated federal law and the forest’s own management plan by failing to consider illegal road usage when calculating changes in the amount of road-free area; that the agency didn't analyze the efficacy of barriers it used to block access to closed roads; and that the agency hasn't acknowledged new information showing threats to grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem that weren’t considered in the EA.
The National Environmental Policy Act requires that agencies take a “hard look” at the impacts of a proposed action. In doing that, the law requires that agencies use the best available science, make their methodologies and data available to the public, and do not rely on incorrect assumptions or data. The National Forest Management Act requires national forests to develop forest plans and ensure that site-specific projects comply with those plans.
The Kootenai National Forest’s forest plan stipulates a minimum amount of land — 55% — that must be left unroaded in certain management units of the Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone that the project falls within. It also stipulates that the amount of land subject to open motorized roads not exceed 31% in Northwest Peak, one of the two bear management units the project affects, and 33% in Garver, the other unit. In Garver, for example, that number would increase to 36% after the project. And an internal document left out of the EA indicated it could reach 42% during project implementation.
Those increases, the groups argue, violate the forest plan’s limits on roads.
The Forest Service proposes to block other roads to offset that decrease in unroaded, or core, habitat. But, the groups argue, that’s not an effective remedy — or at least not a well enough understood remedy to rely upon — because berms or gates erected to close roads are often destroyed or simply driven around. And some roads that are closed to motorized travel lack barriers at all.
The Forest Service has documented widespread illegal road usage in the area and has admitted that it doesn’t fix many breached or ineffective barriers. The agency itself recently documented at least 72 such instances. But that wasn’t considered in the EA, which assumed 100% efficacy of barriers and quick repairs. The agency violated NEPA and the NFMA by relying on that incorrect assumption, the groups argued.
Plus, they wrote in the brief, previous decisions from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court required the Forest Service to account for illegal usage of roads, as well as unofficial and user-created roads, when calculating road density in grizzly habitat. Failing to do so, the groups argued, has already been proven in court as a violation of law. And although the agency acknowledged in internal documents that it wasn’t considering illegal road use or unofficial roads in its analysis, that detail was left out of the methodology explanation in the EA — another NEPA violation, the groups charge.
The forest plan also requires that the agency adhere to IGBC regulations for projects in grizzly habitat. Those stipulate that projects shouldn’t degrade grizzly habitat or adversely affect the species in the area where the Black Ram project would take place.
“Management decisions will favor the needs of the grizzly bear when grizzly habitat and other land use values compete,” the regulations state. “Land uses which can affect grizzlies and/or their habitat will be made compatible with grizzly needs or such uses will be disallowed or eliminated.”
Additionally, NEPA requires that the Forest Service perform further analysis on a proposed action if the proposed action changes or if “There are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts.”
The Black Ram EA cites a Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population of 55–60 bears in 2017 with 73% probability that the population was stable or growing. But since then, data show a precipitous decline in grizzlies: 50 in 2018, 45 in 2019, 42 in 2020.
An October 2022 presentation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documented three non-natural deaths of female grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak in 2022. Biologists believe the non-natural deaths of just one or two females a year in that ecosystem could imperil the population. The agency violated NEPA and the federal Administrative Procedure Act by failing to conduct further analysis, the groups argued in the brief.
