Two environmental groups filed a formal protest this week over a project to log Bureau of Land Management lands near Clancy and Unionville, saying they fear the work will harm water quality.

"We are protesting because instead of trying to clean up Lump Gulch, Clancy and Prickly Pear Creek as required by the Clean Water Act, the BLM proposes to spend several hundred thousand dollars subsidizing logging, which will dump tons of more sediment into these polluted streams," Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies said on Tuesday.

Generally, the protest filed by the Alliance and Native Ecosystems Council claims the BLM didn't fully analyze the cumulative affects of this and possible future projects in the area six miles south of Helena. But another part of the protest is similar what the conservation groups appealed on work proposed nearby for the Helena National Forest—that the projects violate provisions of the Clean Water Act.

Although a Forest Service appeals officer ultimately upheld the project, officials with the Helena forest decided to focus on travel management work instead of logging until they establish "TMDLs"—or the Total Maximum Daily Load—for creeks in the area.

Part of that reasoning was due to a recent federal district court ruling, which Garrity said speaks to the Helena area projects. In the ruling, Judge Thomas Molloy halted a proposed 127,000-acre fire salvage timber sale in the Lolo National Forest because it would have increased the amount of sediment in area streams. Environmental groups, including the Alliance, said the state hadn't properly quantified the existing sources of contamination for the already impaired streams, nor had it proposed a cleanup plan for them. Molloy ruled this violated the 1972 federal Clean Water Act.

The BLM project being protested arose from a joint Environmental Impact Statement completed by the BLM and Helena National Forest in 2000. While the EIS was done by both federal agencies because the properties are within the same general vicinity, the final decisions were separate documents and the protest process is significantly different.

In the BLM's decision, Rick Hotaling, BLM field manager in Butte, signed off on a proposal to treat 815 acres of public forest lands, using non-commercial thinning on 140 acres and logging the other 675 acres. The timber sale involves 1.6 million board feet Û enough timber to fill about 300 logging trucks; the non-commercial thinning will used mechanical means and controlled burns to remove underbrush and small trees.

Since the protest was filed, Hotaling will take another look at his decision, signed in 2000, and decide whether to revise the project, kill it completely or move forward as planned. At the same time, the timber sale process will continue, according to BLM Forester Mike Small. He notes that they probably wouldn't actually allow any logging to be done during this time.

If Hotaling sticks with his decision, the environmental groups can take their protest to the next step, which is the Interior Board of Land Appeals. There, an administrative law judge will rule on whether there were any errors of facts or laws made in Hotaling's decision. The IBLA judge's decision must be signed off on by another IBLA judge.

The last step, if the environmental groups still don't agree with the BLM's plans, is to take their protest to the federal court level.