Herbicide ruling has little impact on KNF program

A federal judge’s recent ruling that the U.S. Forest Service can’t use helicopters to spray herbicide in the Kootenai National Forest will have little impact on the agency’s invasive plant management program, an agency official said.

“The ruling doesn’t affect our current weed program because we don’t use helicopter spraying,” said Quinn Carver, KNF natural resource staff officer. “We have not used helicopters to spray yet due to the expense.”

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy concluded that in order for the Forest Service to utilize aerial herbicide applications contemplated in its Invasive Plant Management Project, the agency would have to address how often flights would be allowed and how they would affect endangered grizzly bears.

Environmentalist group Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued the Forest Service over the plan’s Final Environmental Impact Statement and 2007 Record of Decision, alleging that grizzly bears would be permanently displaced up to a mile from any area that is sprayed by low-flying helicopters.

“The injunction against helicopter spraying is a great victory for the Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies,” said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “… This fragile population is barely hanging on and it cannot withstand invasive activities, like helicopter spraying, that would continually harass and displace bears for the next decade.”

Molloy affirmed all of U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch’s rulings in the case, allowing the Forest Service to continue with the remaining aspects of the plan, including the use of ground-based herbicide applications and biological controls, such as weed-eating insects.

The ruling denied several of the plaintiff’s other claims. The group alleged that the Forest Service’s plan did not consider the effects of the herbicide on human health or on the reproductive health of male grizzly bears. According to the group, the Forest Service also failed to consider the impact the plan would have on migratory songbirds.

“We’re disappointed,” Garrity said. “We think the Forest Service should have taken a harder look at these herbicide sprays on people and animals. There is judicial precedence for that.”

The weed program’s ROD authorized treating a maximum of 30,000 acres annually over the next 15 years, though the document stated that funding would probably only allow treating 5,000 to 6,000 acres per year.

Kootenai National Forest’s ecosystem is threatened by an increase of noxious plants, the agency reported, and herbicide sprays are one of many ways the agency tries to keep them from eradicating native plants.

“We will comply and continue with our regular program to control the spread of noxious weeds,” Carver said, “and the subsequent impact to wildlife habitat that they cause.”