Volume 15, Number 4
Winter 2003

AWR Fights Rock Creek Roadless Logging
By Michael Garrity, Executive Director

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies asked the Forest Service to reconsider its plan to log 1,113 acres in the Lolo National Forest near Rock Creek. Rock Creek is a nationally famous blue ribbon trout stream 27 miles west of Missoula, Montana. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies appealed the Rock Creek logging project to the Forest Service's Regional Office in Missoula. The timber sale would log 477 acres of Silver King, Welcome Creek, and Quigg Peak roadless lands. The process would kill westslope cutthroat trout and the threatened bull trout by increasing the amount of sediment by 1400% and discharging toxic herbicides into Rock Creek, one of Montana's two blue ribbon trout streams west of the continental divide.

Crystal clear Butte Cabin Creek, a small tributary in the Quigg Peak Roadless Area. This project would increase the amount of sediment by 1400% and discharging toxic herbicides into pristine watersheds. Jamie Lennox photo.

The Regional Forester denied our appeal and AWR is now working to raise money to file a lawsuit in Federal District Court to protect Rock Creek. The Lolo National Forest is under court order in another case to halt any logging in impaired watersheds until a cleanup plan is completed. The same type of environmental damage is at stake here. The State of Montana has found that Rock Creek and its tributaries are not meeting water quality standards due to sediment pollution from logging. Instead of working on cleaning up Rock Creek, the Lolo National Forest wants to spend $1,180,000 to log inventoried roadless areas and dump more sediment and herbicides into Rock Creek. The Lolo National Forest's Environmental Assessment found that the Lolo would lose $1,187,100 logging Rock Creek.

Instead of subsidizing the timber industry to log roadless areas the federal government should use some of this money to work on developing a cleanup plan or TMDL to restore Rock Creek. Forest Service studies have shown inventoried roadless areas provide clean drinking water and function as biological strongholds for populations of threatened and endangered species. Now the Forest Service wants to violate the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act by dumping herbicides and hundreds of tons of sediment from logging into a blue ribbon trout stream. Spending over a million dollars logging roadless areas and dumping sediment and herbicides into Rock Creek is not only illogical it is also illegal. The Forest Service and the Bush administration have clearly decided on a management plan that forces the public to take the Forest Service to court to make them follow the law. The American public has a right to expect a higher standard from our public servants.

AWR is working hard to file a lawsuit to protect Rock Creek but we desperately need your help. Lawsuits are expensive and time consuming. Please help us protect Rock Creek by making a donation today. We cannot let the Forest Service get away with destroying Rock Creek and the surrounding roadless areas.

Please also call or write Missoula District Ranger Don Carroll and Regional Forester Brad Powell and tell them that you are against their million-dollar plan to ruin Rock Creek and the adjoining roadless areas.

Don Carroll
Lolo National Forest
Fort Missoula Building 24
Missoula, MT 59804
(406) 329-3814

Brad Powell
Regional Forester
Federal Building
P.O. Box 7669
Missoula, MT 59807
(406) 329-3316

Please also consider making a donation to AWR's Rock Creek legal defense fund. Rock Creek needs to be saved. The choice is simple. We as taxpayers can pay a million dollars to log the roadless areas surrounding Rock Creek and dump tons of sediment into this blue ribbon trout stream or you can make a contribution and convince your friends to do the same to AWR's Rock Creek Legal Defense Fund. Together we can save Rock Creek.