The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

The Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project (BMBP), working with the League of Wilderness Defenders filed a lawsuit on Monday, March 22, to stop parts of an extensive project in the Metolius basin designed to reduce fire danger and improve forest health.

The suit was filed in Federal District Court by attorneys David Stewart and Rob Kline on behalf of BMBP.

According to BMBP, the organization is seeking to stop "ecologically destructive" aspects of the Metolius Basin Vegetation Management Project. The complaint specifies that BMBP is not seeking to block non-commercial fire-risk reduction activities, such as small diameter tree thinning, prescribed burning and mowing in the Wildland-Urban Interface and near local community residences.

"The Metolius project is a large-scale commercial timber sale with potentially severe impacts to species habitat, rare flower populations, basic soil fertility, water quality and hydrologic flows," said Karen Coulter, co-director of the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project.

Local Forest Service officials had limited comments about the suit.

"We have not had a chance to look at the complaint," said Sisters District Ranger Bill Anthony on Monday.

"Obviously, we're very discouraged about it and disappointed," he said. "We think this is a very well-designed project with a lot of community support."

The Forest Service sought and gained an unprecedented level of local involvement in the crafting of the project.

Coulter appealed the Deschutes National Forest plan for the project last fall. She had sought a reduction in the diameter of trees to be thinned in the project. Coulter had asked the Forest Service to separate out what she considers commercial logging aspects of the project from what she considers legitimate fuel reduction efforts.

In October, Pacific Northwest Regional Forester Linda Goodman quashed the appeal and upheld the original Forest Service plan in its entirety. In her decision, she wrote that "the project is in compliance with all laws, orders and agency policies. The project record adequately supports all of the issues brought up in your appeal."

In reviewing the appeal, Regional Natural Resources Director Calvin N. Joyner wrote that "the selected alternative (in the project plan) meets the purpose and need to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire and insect (infestation) and disease; to provide for safety of people and protect property, tribal and natural resources; to restore late-successional forest conditions; and to protect and restore watershed conditions."

"Cutting down the national heritage trees of the Metolius area -- our children's future -- is a mistake that could not be undone in our lifetimes," said David Stewart, one of the case attorneys. "The controversial old- growth logging portions of this sale are some of the last of the less than five percent of America's original ancient forest habitat remaining after decades of unsustainable logging. The science does not support cutting large trees away from homes to reduce fire risk; in fact it tells us just the opposite -- logging large-diameter trees increases fire risk."

The Forest Service has argued that cutting some larger white fir trees will improve forest health. Foresters have also resisted the idea of reducing the diameter of trees to be thinned, saying that would leave stands too dense.