Decision extends freeze on USFS Project

A proposed forestry initiative planned to take place two miles west of Priest Lake in northern Bonner County remains on pause after a judge in the U.S. District Court of Idaho remanded the project to the U.S. Forest Service in a March 31 decision. 

The USFS’ Hanna Flats Good Neighbor Authority Project, which the agency has said would reduce insect disease and catastrophic wildfire risk and is planned to include 2,352 acres of timber harvest, prescribed fire and reforestation work, has been challenged in court since 2018 by conservation group Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

The group has argued that the project violates several federal laws and the USFS’ own 2011 Forest Plan Amendments for Motorized Access Management within the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Zones.

According to Alliance for the Wild Rockies executive director Mike Garrity, his organization opposes the project in the interest of preserving habitat for an isolated population of approximately 50 grizzly bears that dwell in the Selkirk Mountains. 

“We want grizzly bears to expand their habitat so we can once again have one connected population in the lower 48,” Garrity told the Daily Bee. “If you have a small, isolated population of any species, then inbreeding becomes a problem. And once inbreeding sets in, they're finished.” 

Alliance for the Wild Rockies originally challenged the Hanna Flats project after an October 2018 decision memo approved the initiative to begin in 2019. 

Court documents indicate that Alliance argued the project violated federal law because it didn’t include an environmental evaluation. The USFS said the project was exempt from the requirement because it was in a wildland-urban interface; Alliance argued the area failed to meet the requirements for the classification. 

A U.S. District Court of Idaho judge ruled in favor of Alliance, suspended the project and remanded the action to the USFS. 

The case is currently in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A representative for the USFS told the Daily Bee that Idaho Panhandle National Forests could not comment on current litigation. 

In a separate case, which went on to include the most recent decision, Alliance for the Wild Rockies argued that the road development that would come with the Hanna Flats project would exceed predetermined road mileage limits in the area and that a 2021 USFS administrative change that attempted to expand the road mileage baselines in the area was invalid because the action required a formal plan amendment. 

In the March 31 decision, the federal court sided with Alliance’s interpretation and remanded the project to the USFS. Now, the agency may have an opportunity to present a revised, compliant plan and attempt to move forward. 

“The ball is in their court,” Garrity said. If the USFS drafts a revised plan, and if Garrity’s organization believes the plan still violates the forest plan amendment, “we will oppose their request to lift the injunction,” he added.

    The Hanna Flats project is proposed to take place west of state highway 57 approximately 28 miles north of Priest River.