Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit to stop a second forest management project on the Spotted Bear Ranger District.

Represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, Friends of the Wild Swan and the Swan View Coalition filed the lawsuit challenging the Soldier Addition II project in U.S. District Court in Missoula Monday.

In February, the groups filed a lawsuit challenging the nearby Spotted Bear River Project.

The groups contend that the projects threaten an array of species, including lynx, bull trout, grizzly bears, wolves, fishers and wolverines.

The lawsuits both assert that the cumulative impacts of the two projects were not adequately considered and mitigated.

“Contrary to law and sound wildlife management practices, the agency has refused to consider the cumulative impacts on wildlife and water quality from the two massive logging projects even though they will be occurring simultaneously and are located next to one another in the same watershed and same grizzly bear management unit,” said Matthew Bishop, an attorney representing the groups.

“The cumulative effects to wildlife from the Solder Addition II and Spotted Bear River projects are enormous,” said Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan. “Industrial logging and more roads do not belong in this remote place that is critical habitat for imperiled fish and wildlife.”

Joe Krueger, environmental coordinator for the Flathead National Forest, counters that the forest has been successful in defending its environmental reviews and projects in court.

“Cumulative effects analysis is one of the more difficult things we do,” he said. “This forest does an outstanding job of analyzing cumulative effects. We have been upheld repeatedly.”

Spotted Bear District Ranger Deb Mucklow also has confidence in the project.

“From my perspective, it’s a very sound, strong project across the spectrum and it has a very thorough analysis,” she said.

The Soldier Addition project is proposed on a swath of land on the west side of the South Fork Flathead River near Spotted Bear.

It involves harvesting an estimated 8 million board feet of timber, mostly lodgepole pine that has been infested with mountain pine beetle, on about 1,200 acres.

An additional 823 acres would be thinned and about 1,333 acres would be burned for resource benefits. It would involve temporarily reopening 14.6 miles of road and building another 5.6 miles of temporary roads.

The Spotted River Project, located east of the South Fork Flathead River, has many of the same characteristics and also would harvest about 8 million board feet of timber.

The lawsuits, if successful, would have economic impacts on the timber industry, but the plaintiffs say the projects will have economic impacts if they proceed, disrupting recreation and creating unsafe conditions on Hungry Horse Reservoir roads that will be used to haul logs to market.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at [email protected].