County hires attorney to intervene in grizzly delisting case

The Lincoln County Commissioners on Wednesday approved an agreement with Doney Crowley P.C. law firm for legal services in a case between an environmental group and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We’re entering into that agreement with two other counties, possibly Sanders County if they decide to come in with us,” said Lincoln County Commissioner Greg Larson.

Richard Allan Payne, an attorney with Doney Crowley, will represent Lincoln County, and Boundary and Bonner counties in Idaho as an intervening party in a federal case to defend U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Alliance for Wild Rockies sued Fish Wildlife Service in February, alleging the federal department ignored decades of science and data collected on the population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem before issuing the decision to delist grizzly bears.

Commissioner Mark Peck said the county hopes the intervention will help lead to a decision for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We want to weigh in as much as we can to prevent uplisting them to endangered,” Peck said. “As a county, we’re making sure we’re doing everything we can to make sure they’re being managed in balance with our human, economic and social needs as well.”

Peck said uplisting the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population could potentially impact everything from timber management projects to access for motorized and mountain bike recreation on Lincoln County lands.

“It could have an impact on every faceted use of the forest,” Peck said.

Peck said Lincoln County helped fund a bear account study completed by the U.S. Geological Service that found the grizzly bear population was healthy enough to be considered for delisting. Larson said the data compiled in the study was available to the county, leading the county commissioners to intervene in the federal lawsuit.

“We believe the numbers have recovered to where [grizzly bears] could be delisted,” Larson said. “We’ve gotten additional data since that time.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service in 1993 published a decision finding that the criteria in the Endangered Species Act warranted listed grizzly bear population but didn’t do so because other animals were of higher priority, according to a summary compiled by Lincoln County.

The federal department gave the same decision for 20 years until 2014, when the Alliance for Wild Rockies brought a lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to act on its 1993 decision. Fish and Wildlife Service then amended their decision to say that recent data showed the grizzly bear population healthy enough for delisting in 2014, and the charge was dismissed.

In February, Alliance for Wild Rockies filed another lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service, claiming the federal department used “statements that are misleading, false, and/or unsupported [to] reach a decision based on politics and convenience, not science.”

“We’re not anti-grizzly bear, we’re trying to strike a balance and support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” Peck said. “We flat disagree that there’s any data or significant issues that warrant that drastic of a movement.”

With fees for senior council, senior associate attorney, associate attorney, statutory paralegal, legal assistant and legal secretary, combined, the county will be paying Doney Crowley $900 an hour for their services.

Payne signed the agreement on April 7, according to county records.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.