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Sierra Club Lawsuits

Victory in the Lolo National Forest in Montana

Case Updates:

June 25, 2004

After an arduous challenge to a massive post-fire logging project in the Lolo National Forest of Montana, Sierra Club has won a huge victory for wildlife and sensitive habitats. A settlement of the case redirects the Forest Service away from subsidizing commercial logging and towards rehabilitation of the forest. The deal prevents logging in valuable roadless areas. It also provides for a ten year restoration project that includes decommissioning 224 miles of old road, reconstructing 287 miles of roads, and reclaiming three mines among others. The settlement is a win-win situation because the forest will be restored while reconstruction will continue to generate new jobs in the region over the next decade.

October 1, 2003

Once again the Club has stymied Bush administration efforts to log big trees in the backcountry under the guise of "healthy forests." On December 2, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the Club's favor in a case challenging a huge logging project in the Lolo National Forest of Montana. The three-judge panel ruled that the Bush Forest Service had failed to assess the impacts of large-scale logging on the wilderness characteristics of the unroaded areas in the national forest. The court noted that "it is well established that ...logging in an unroaded area is an irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources that could have serious environmental consequences." The decision forces the Bush administration to go back to the drawing board and consider the project's effects on the area's important wilderness values.

May 1, 2003

The Lolo National Forest in western Montana contains a vast and spectacular mountainous wilderness. The Bush Administration seeks to log more than 2,000 acres of wild, roadless areas in this forest. A new Club lawsuit aims to advance the protection of roadless areas by requiring the Administration to address the environmental harms logging causes in these ecologically sensitive areas. In the spring of 2003, the judge granted a temporary restraining order in our favor, finding that the Forest Service had failed to address the effects of logging on water quality in the forest.

Details and Documents: