A massive logging project in the Kootenai National Forest has been put on hold after it was challenged by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, a Helena-based conservation group.

A lawsuit over the East Reservoir Project was filed in federal court Monday against the forest, the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

It alleges that they failed to adequately consider impacts to threatened grizzly bear, lynx and bull trout habitat, violated federal environmental laws and failed to fully inform the public of potential impacts from added roads and motorized trails.

Encompassing about 92,400 acres on the east side of Lake Koocanusa, the project area is about 15 miles east of Libby, sharing a northern border with the Fisher River Ranger District and extending south past the Libby Dam.

When initially approved, it was expected to generate a significant boost to the local economy with an estimated harvest of 39 million board-feet of timber.

Kootenai Forest Planning and Resources Officer Quinn Carver — who said he could not comment on the specifics of the case — noted it was the largest project approved in the forest for many years.

“That’s the biggest one I’ve dealt with in the eight years that I’ve been here,” Carver said. “It’s a landscape-level project that crosses multiple watersheds.”

On the heels of a University of Montana economic study that analyzed the costs of timber sale litigation to the Forest Service and local economies, Alliance for the Wild Rockies Executive Director Mike Garrity framed the issue in terms of the $2.5 million the Forest Service estimates it would spend on the sale.

“Almost all these timber sales lose money, so I don’t understand how stopping a money-losing timber sale costs anybody anything,” Garrity said. “The people who are upset are the people not getting these subsidies, so if a timber sale is delayed they’re not getting their federal handout.”

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies objects in particular to amendments that exempt the East Reservoir Project from stipulations under the previous Kootenai Forest Plan. The project was developed under the previous forest plan, which was in effect from 1987 until the latest plan revision was approved earlier this year.

One of those amendments specifically allows clear-cutting on forested areas in excess of 40 acres, the limit under the old plan. The exemption required the approval of the regional forester.

“It is not atypical, for an old forest plan, to site-specifically amend,” Carver said, noting that the exemptions only apply to certain areas within the project. “Some of them are also relative to new science,” including stand size, tree disease and pine beetle management.

Regarding protections for threatened species in the project area, Carver added that the biological assessment and proposed actions were developed in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

However, the lawsuit objects to amendments that exempt the project from wildlife protections, including road density limitations for grizzly bear habitat.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates [the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population] is going extinct, and the main reason for that is grizzlies get illegally killed because these logging roads provide easy access for people to drive around and shoot things,” Garrity said. “They’re going to say, ‘We need more money to save grizzly bears and lynx because their numbers are declining.’ And that will put more bureaucrats to work.”

He added that clear-cuts threaten protected lynx populations, which are particularly dependent on old growth habitat. Their main prey, snowshoe hares, similarly require dense stands of forest with fallen trees to provide cover.

Regarding bull trout, the lawsuit claims that Cripple Creek, a drainage within the project, is already impaired for cold-water fisheries due to sediment pollution and the Kootenai Forest failed to properly mitigate for the effects of the project. Lake Koocanusa contains a significant population of bull trout that use streams and tributaries to spawn.

However, Carver again pointed out that the agency’s biological assessment was overseen by the federal wildlife agency.

“The population in Koocanusa is probably the strongest population in the lower 48,” he said. “Otherwise I don’t think the Fish and Wildlife Service would be allowing us to fish for them.”

Drainages in the project area include Fivemile, Warland, Cripple Horse, Canyon and Dunn creeks. The Forest Service owns 85 percent of the affected land, with 8 percent owned by Plum Creek Timber Co., 4 percent owned by the state and the rest in private and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ownership.

Currently the Kootenai Forest is proceeding with timber sales under the project.

“We did award two timber sales, with plans for a third,” Carver said. “Until we receive a decision from the court that enjoins the process, we can move forward. If we receive an injunction, obviously everything stops on the ground.”

The two sales amount to about 1,950 acres and will produce an estimated 9 million board-feet of timber.

Both Carver and Garrity agreed the timeline for the case is difficult to determine and depends how crowded the court’s docket already is.

“Last year, when we dealt with the Pilgrim Project [lawsuit], we turned it around relatively quickly, in a month or two,” said Carver.

This one might not be so simple, however.

“Sometimes people just want to meet halfway,” Garrity said regarding the possibility of settling the case. “But it’s just a bad timber sale, and it’s already been heavily clear-cut. It’s just not the place.”

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com