| Environmentalists win suit over
Ottawa Forest plan
(Note from BB: The cancer spreads ... This should do wonders for the economy of Michigan's upper peninsula.) March 21, 2003 The Detroit Free Press 600 W. Fort Detroit, MI 48226 To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@freepress.com Traverse City, Michigan (AP) - A federal appeals court Friday sided with an environmental group that sued to stop the U.S. Forest Service from allowing widespread hardwood logging in the Ottawa National Forest. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge David McKeague, saying the Forest Service's "approval of the (timber harvest) project without adherence to the statutorily mandated environmental analysis was arbitrary and capricious." The court ordered McKeague to enter summary judgment for Northwoods Wilderness Recovery, Inc., a Marquette-based environmental activist group. The Ottawa National Forest covers about one million acres of primarily hardwood forest in the western Upper Peninsula. Forest Service officials in 1998 planned to allow logging selective- and clear-cutting in at least 4,800 acres in a project dubbed "Rolling Thunder." Northwoods Wilderness Recovery sued in 2000, arguing the Forest Service violated its own management plan guidelines when it approved Rolling Thunder. The Forest Service already permitted selective logging in the area at a rate almost twice as great as it projected, they argued. The Appeals Court agreed, and said the Forest Service also failed to conduct scientific or other assessments under either the National Forest Management Act or the National Environmental Policy Act. Ottawa National Forest Supervisor Robert Lueckel said he hadn't heard of the ruling when contacted Friday afternoon. "This really has caught me cold," he said. "I'll need to read the whole ruling and discuss it with other folks, but we will abide by the law." "I was surprised by the decision," said Charles Gross, an assistant U.S. Attorney who argued the case for the Forest Service. "There was nothing at the oral argument that suggested they would reverse." Gross said a small portion -- roughly 10 percent -- of the Rolling Thunder project was logged last year, but the vast majority of the timber land had yet to be put out for bid. The Associated Press was unable to immediately reach Northwoods Wilderness Recovery officials or their attorney. |