Baseless lawsuits create a logjam for Forest Service
Bob Russell
Salt Lake Tribune 01/13/2007 01:48:39 PM MST

I recently retired from the U.S. Forest Service after 38 years of federal service. My final job with the Forest Service was forest supervisor of the Dixie National Forest in southwestern Utah.
~~~ Many Utahns I have met over the past few years are rightly concerned about the health of their forests. One hundred years of fire exclusion, prolonged drought conditions and epidemic insect infestations have taken a toll.
~~~ The national forest supervisors in Utah, in cooperation with Utah's state forester, continue to try to mitigate these trends. That effort is hindered by the unproductive and glacially slow involvement of the federal courts, spurred by environmental lawsuits.
~~~ During my first week in Utah in 2003, I heard about a decision to remove some trees on the Griffin Top portion of the Aquarius Plateau northwest of Escalante, a project designed to slow or stop a new insect infestation. The proposal, known as the Griffin Springs vegetation manage- ment project, was challenged by the Ecology Center and Aquarius Escalante Found- ation.
~~~ Two years later, in March 2005, the federal district court in Salt Lake City ruled in favor of the Forest Service and found that the issues raised by the plaintiffs were not valid. On my last day of work more than a year later, June 30, 2006, we received word that the Forest Service had lost the subsequent appeal in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
~~~ Meanwhile, the insect infestation increased and is nearing epidemic proportions. Should my successor decide to pursue a new project in the same area, it will cover a lot more acreage and focus primarily on salvaging the vast number of dead Engelmann spruce trees that were lost since the original project was delayed in 2002.
~~~ It took three years for the federal court system to decide that the Forest Service had failed to specifically state that it had used the "best available science" in making the decision. The court did not find that the Forest Service had failed to use best available science - only that we had inadvertently failed to specifically mention it in the decision document.
~~~ In doing so, the court basically took the easy way out and did not rule on the several disingenuous and trumped-up issues raised by the plaintiffs that were soundly rejected out of hand by the district court in Utah.
~~~ The environmentalists did win this one. Unfortunately, the health of the forest and people who live in Utah and/or use the Dixie National Forest lost in a big way. Environmental groups always win when the courts take three years to render a decision and delay the implementation of needed work on the ground.
~~~ The courts compound the problem by granting status to file environmental lawsuits to anyone who lives and breathes, no understanding of conditions on the ground required. The courts also encourage environmental groups to shop for judges who have an ax to grind. At the point the case reaches those judges, the deck becomes stacked against good resource management.
~~~ Adding insult to injury, we taxpayers will likely pay the Ecology Center's and Aquarius Escalante Foundation's court costs. We lose again.
~~~ My suggestion to Utahns reading this who may care about the health of the state's forested lands is to get mad and get involved.
~~~
~~~ ---
~~~ * BOB RUSSELL is retired forest supervisor, Dixie National Forest.