Flathead National Forest revises Round Star Project environmental assessment
Whitefish Pilot | Whitefish Pilot | UPDATED 1 month, 2 weeks AGO
A map of the proposed Round Star project on the Tally Lake Ranger District.
The Flathead National Forest released a revised environmental assessment for the Round Star logging project near Tally Lake. The revised assessment was produced in response to an order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen DeSoto.
In January 2025, a group of conservation groups sued the Forest Service to stop the project, alleging the project did not thoroughly consider potential impacts on lynx habitat and that it did not consider the cumulative effects of the adjacent 12,300-acre Cyclone Bill project.
Per a July 2025 order, logging was allowed to continue while the lawsuit was ongoing. On March 31, DeSoto halted logging and remanded the project to the Forest Service to address identified deficiencies.
Updates to the environmental assessment include a revised wildland-urban interface delineation and associated lynx habitat analysis, and a revised cumulative effects analysis that included consideration of the Cyclone Bill project.
The project includes 2,827 acres of noncommercial treatments and 6,324 acres of commercial treatments in the Tally Lake Ranger District, about 13 miles west of Whitefish.
The project activities aim to reduce tree densities and fuel loadings within the wildland-urban interface to protect communities, increase plant and tree diversity, increase the presence of large size classes of trees over time, maintain low levels of insect and disease activity in the project area, provide a mix of forest products and enhance and expand recreation opportunities in the Round Meadow Cross-Country Ski Area.
The revised environmental assessment is available for public review at fs.usda.gov/r01/flathead/projects/60892
The release of the revised assessment marks the start of a 30-day period for the public to review the document and provide comments on the new information. Electronic comments and attachments may be submitted to: [email protected]. Comments may also be mailed or hand-delivered to the Tally Lake Ranger Station, 650 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell, MT 59901.