Environmentalists sue to stop Oregon logging project in spotted owl habitat

EUGENE, Ore. (CN) —  A trio of conservation groups is accusing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in federal court of failing to adhere to its own management plans in a new lawsuit aimed at blocking a massive logging project slated for old-growth forests in Oregon.

Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and Umpqua Watersheds claim in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that the agency violated multiple federal environmental laws through the authorization of the 42 Divide Forest Management Plan. The 42 Divide plan is a multi-decade series of logging projects set for nearly 7,000 acres of public lands in Camas Valley.

The project area spans forests and waterways that are home to the federally protected northern spotted owl, Oregon Coast coho salmon, marbled murrelet and western pond turtles.

The conservation groups say they support the parts of the project that are designed to restore natural ecosystem processes to forests, but take issue with the parts they say target properly functioning mature and old-growth forests in protected reserves.

”[Bureau of Land Management] continues to wrap large logging projects targeting mature and old-growth forests in a veneer of ‘restoration’ and ‘resilience,’ despite the research showing the logging would negatively impact protected wildlife and increase wildfire risk, and despite the clear legal mandate to protect these forests,” Brenna Bell, senior staff attorney at Crag Law Center, said in a statement.

The proposed logging at the heart of the project will turn closed canopy forests into dry, open landscapes and exacerbate wildfire risk, the groups say.

“The [Bureau of Land Management] continues to shirk its obligations to the public and the law in its pursuit of large commercial logging projects,” John Persell with Oregon Wild said in a statement. “Aggressive logging in these protected areas not only endangers fish and wildlife, but it also adds to the cumulative destruction of the landscape already ravaged by the surrounding private-land clearcuts.”

Not only do the groups accuse the Bureau of Land Management of failing to follow its own internal management plans, they also say the approval of the project violated the Administrative Procedure Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

“It should not require legal action to get this federal agency to follow its own management plan and manage public lands to benefit more than just the timber industry,” Bell said.

The conservation groups claim the Bureau of Land Management relied on incorrect data that conflicted with data collected by their volunteers.

“Plaintiffs’ field data shows that, in many of the proposed logging units, the information [Bureau of Land Management] provided in its NEPA documents does not match the facts on the ground, especially regarding the baseline conditions of forest stands,” the conservation groups wrote in the complaint.

Plus, the groups say the project conflicts with the agency’s own stated management objective to conserve and recover Endangered Species Act-listed species and their habitats.

“In such a diverse and important ecosystem, home to sensitive and imperiled wildlife species, [Bureau of Land Management] must do better,” said Janice Reid of Umpqua Watersheds. “The agency must conserve and protect imperiled wildlife species and their habitats, and demonstrate compliance with federal environmental laws before authorizing such large-scale industrial forestry practices on public lands.”

The conservation groups are asking the court to find that the agency neglected to take a hard look at the environmental impacts and block the project.

The Bureau of Land Management did not respond to a request for comment before press time.