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NEWS
RELEASE Contact:
CONSERVATION GROUPS CHARGE KOOTENAI NATIONAL FOREST LOGGING VIOLATES THE CLEANWATER ACT The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and The Lands Council announced today that they filed a complaint in Federal District Court in Missoula to stop the Garver timber sale in the Kootenai National Forest. The planned logging would cut 12.5 million board feet of timber on 1744 acres, pollute the West Fork of the Yaak River in violation of the 1972 Clean Water Act and destroy habitat for old-growth dependent species whose viability is in question. In addition to polluting impaired streams and harming old-growth species the Garver project is expected to lose $1,700,000. The Forest Service is under Federal District Court order to not log in impaired watersheds until a cleanup plan is completed. As in the Lolo Post Burn case, at least until a TMDL is approved for the West Fork of the Yaak, any further exacerbation of the polluted or WQLS-related problems is prohibited. The State of Montana has found that the West Fork of the Yaak River is not meeting water quality standards due to sediment pollution from logging. "The Kootenai National Forest is ignoring a Federal District Court's ruling with their logging plan which will dump more sediment into the West Fork of the at a cost to taxpayers of over $1,700,000," stated Michael Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. The Kootenai National Forest budget shows the Kootenai National Forest lost an average of $1000 per acre on their timber program over the last 10 years. "The Forest Service needs to start following the 1972 Clean Water Act and clean up the mess they made. Rather than lose 1.7 million dollars polluting another Montana trout stream, the Forest Service should work with the E.P.A. to complete a cleanup plan or TMDL (total maximum daily load) to restore these important trout streams, stated Garrity." The Federal District Court also recently ruled that the Kootnai National Forest is not in compliance with the old growth species monitoring requirements of its Forest Plan. "We believe that if the Kootenai National Forest had complied with its species monitoring requirements over the life of its plan, then it would be apparent that old growth species like the northern goshawk are trending towards possible extirpation and even listing under the Endangered Species Act. The public expects the federal government to follow the law and obey judge's rulings," stated Mike Petersen, Executive Director of The Lands Council. The Environmental Impact Statement found the Garver project would likely have adverse affects on every "sensitive" old growth dependent species in the KNF such as the fisher, the wolverine, the black-backed woodpecker, the flammulated owl, and the northern goshawk, due to the direct loss of habitat from logging. "It is time for the Forest Service and the Bush Administration to start cleaning up our streams and protecting our wildlife instead of subsidizing timber corporations and breaking the law," Garrity concluded. ### |
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