Summer 2007
Echo Trail Lawsuit

As often happens with such matters, the U.S. Forest Service's Echo Trail Area Forest Management Project finds itself before a judge.

A coalition of environmental groups lead by the Sierra Club's Northstar Chapter filed suit in late June against the USFS over the forest management plan which would log trees on more than 12,000 acres – roughly 19 square miles – of land surrounding the Trout Lake unit of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Trout Lake Unit is located southwest of the Echo Trail; it is the western, non-contiguous section of the BWCAW.

The environmental coalition asked the federal court to halt logging and road building for the Echo Trail Project until the USFS complies with what it sees as legal obligations to analyze the timber sales impacts to the nearby BWCAW, preserve the wilderness character of the BWCAW, protect the Canada lynx, and ensure the area’s “natural rich diversity of species” is maintained.

The coalition asserts that logging and road-building in close proximity to the wilderness area will have detrimental impacts on the wilderness from machinery noise, habitat disruption, and invasive species advancement. The groups also maintain that project planning did not fully address impact on the federally endangered Canada lynx in the region.

The USFS rationale for the Echo Trail Project stresses the need to manage the forest in a way that adds young jack pine to the ecosystem of this historically jack pine/black spruce landscape. “The jack pine in the Echo Trail Area is old and mature and as it declines, there is concern that the jack pine cover type will be lost to other species,” the summary states. “Adding young jack pine stands to this ecosystem would contribute to a Forest Plan desired condition.”

“We are saddened that the agency is risking clean water, wildlife and special qualities of wilderness clearly intended for protection by Congress,” Lois Norrgard, Forest Protection Co-Chair of Sierra Club’s Northstar Chapter said in a media release. “We are disappointed the Forest Service has not obeyed the law.”

The suit focuses on the Forest Services alleged failure to consider direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of the logging on the bwcaw and its failure to preserve wilderness character as required by section 4(b) of the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Section 4(b) of the Wilderness Act states: “Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, each agency administering any area designated as wilderness shall be responsible for preserving the wilderness character of the area and shall so administer such area for such other purposes for which it may have been established as also to preserve its wilderness character. Except as otherwise provided in this Act, wilderness areas shall be devoted to the public purposes of recreational, scenic, scientific, educational, conservation, and historical use.”

Forest industry advocates have noted that the current plan has addressed many concerns expressed by environmental groups. The industry opposes with what they see as the environmental organizations’ attempt to extend wilderness protections beyond the boundary of the wilderness area.

“The wilderness is a wilderness,” Wayne Brandt, executive vice president of the Minnesota Timber Producers Association, told the Star Tribune recently. “There’s a line around it, and outside of that wilderness the law says that the forest is to be managed for multiple benefits.”

Planning for the Echo Trail Project has been underway for nearly four years.