District judge denies injunction on Young Dodge

Judge Donald W. Molloy of the United States District Court in Missoula ruled against a request for injunction, allowing lumber harvesting to proceed in the Young Dodge area of the Kootenai National Forest.

The project area includes approximately 37,900 acres in the Young and Dodge Creek drainages, of which 32,600 are in the Kootenai National Forest. It also includes 3,700 acres of private land and 1,570 of state land.

The initial record of decision on the project was signed in April 2008, but was rejected after appeal. Forest Supervisor Paul Bradford signed the Supplemental Record of Decision on April 2, 2012.

Following that decision, two sale packages were offered for timber in the area. Initial estimates indicated approximately 9.7 million board feet of timber would be harvested from those two packages. That estimate was low, however, and post-cruise estimates were revised to show over 17 million board feet of available timber.

Stoken Logging of Eureka purchased one of the sale packages, a package that includes approximately 12 million board feet of harvestable timber. The remaining 5 million board feet was sold to Thompson River Lumber of Thompson Falls.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a request for injunction with Judge Molloy’s court in May 2013. Judge Molloy’s ruling was direct, “A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish that it is likely to succeed on the merits, that it is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in its favor and that an injunction is in the public interest…Injunctive relief pendent lite is not warranted in this case. Plaintiff has neither raised serious questions going to the merits of this matter nor demonstrated that irreparable harm is likely attendant to the implementation of the Project. Further, the balance of equities does not tip in Plaintiff’s favor.”

Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck labeled the decision as bittersweet. “We’re wasting all of these resources in litigation when the decisions can be, and have been, worked out by the locals, the folks with their feet on the ground doing work here,” he said.

“It’s encouraging that the Forest Service is winning the vast majority of these cases,” Peck said. “They’ve lost one out of something like the past 15 or 16 cases. It’s a shame that the work being done by people on the ground, here, locally, is being undermined by a group from somewhere else that won’t even come here to see what’s involved.”

Peck said the economic implications of the sales bode well for Lincoln County. The county receives 25 percent of gross receipts paid to the forest service for the timber. Peck was unable to speculate about the amounts involved, citing a large number of variables such as timing, species of trees harvested and the amount of saw versus non-saw logs taken from the project. Each of those factors impact the final receipts and by extension the county’s take from the project.

More importantly, Peck said, the project means jobs. Peck estimated that each million board feet of timber provides, directly and indirectly, 10 jobs. Some of those may be new jobs, some may provide better job security for timber crews in the area. Either way, it’s good economic news for a county already suffering with one of the state’s highest unemployment rates.

Timber sales generally have a shelf life of five years, said forest service staff officer Quinn Carver, but those timelines can vary based upon a number of factors, such as litigation. Carver said these projects had experienced some delay due to the litigation, but that both were “moving forward right now.” That statement was confirmed by a call to Stoken Logging for comment, but owner Pat Stoken was reportedly out on the Young Dodge project and out of phone service range.

Peck, previously with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, has a family history in logging and timber. He speculated that the two companies involved, Stoken and Thompson River, would be harvesting the 17 million board feet sooner rather than later.

“The environment is good right now,” Peck said. “With fuel prices down and the market up, it’s a good time to harvest timber and they should move through that 17 million feet pretty quick.”