Asheville groups threaten to sue US Forest Service over Endangered Species Act violation
ASHEVILLE – Six conservation groups are threatening to sue the U.S. Forest Service for violating the Endangered Species Act regarding the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest Land Management Plan, which was finalized in February after a decade-long revision process.
Sam Evans, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, sent a letter July 25 to Chief of Forest Service at the U.S. Forest Service, Randy Moore, and four other leaders of federal and state agencies. The letter is on behalf of Asheville-area based groups and chapters of Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity, The Wilderness Society, MountainTrue and the Sierra Club.
The letter accuses the U.S. Forest Service of violating the ESA, which says that all “federal departments and agencies shall seek to conserve endangered species and threatened species.” ESA also says that federal agencies cannot jeopardize the existence of endangered or threatened species through any action they take.
Federal law dictates that the Forest Service had to undergo a process known as “consultation” to determine whether their actions will jeopardize the continued existence of an endangered species. The Forest Service consulted with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to perform the consultation over the land management plan.
This is a plan that national forests update typically every 10 to 15 years, which Evans referred to as essentially a “zoning map” for national forests, to the Citizen Times. The last time Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests significantly amended their plan was 1994, according to Evans. This process to update the land management plan began in 2013.
The conservation groups take issue with the consultation the Forest Service participated in regarding the Nantahala-Pisgah Land Management Plan. It sought to analyze how the land management plan’s logging proposal would impact six protected bat species. They specifically argue that the Forest Service breached the ESA by providing Fish and Wildlife “inaccurate and incomplete information during the consultation,” and then relying on that information to decide that the land management plan would not jeopardize any of the specified bats according to the consultation.
Referring to the land management plan, Evans said “there’s not any limitation on where, how, and why they can do timber production. It just says ‘we can do timber production on this much bigger landscape, but trust us, won’t do anything bad.’”
The conservation groups provide five examples of how the U.S. Forest Service did not provide U.S. Fish and Wildlife with the “best available science” to inform their consultation including relaying “inaccurate and illogical assumptions about future forest disturbance.”
More: Opinion: US Forest Service new Nantahala-Pisgah plan does not protect old-growth forests
More: Pisgah, Nantahala plan done: Forest service still seeking feedback, logging fears remain
More: Pisgah, Nantahala forest plan drew a lot of objections. What did they help change?
“Our commitment is that we will always strive to listen to and convene diverse perspectives to make the best decisions, informed by science, so we can create healthy and resilient forests now and for the future,” U.S. Forest Service public affairs specialist for North Carolina National Forests Jenifer Bunty said in a July 26 statement to the Citizen Times.
She later added “We cannot comment on the status of ongoing litigation. We continue to encourage open public dialogue on matters pertaining to National Forest lands.”
The letter the conservation groups sent then reads, “Since the agency put ‘garbage in,’ it could only get ‘garbage out.’”
The other leaders cited in the letter are U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Debra Haaland, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams and National Forests in North Carolina Forest Supervisor James Melonas.
These organizations gave the Forest Service 60 days to address their concerns before filing the lawsuit.
Mitchell Black covers Buncombe County and healthcare for the Citizen Times. Email him at mblack@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchABlack. Please help support local journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville conservation groups threaten to sue US Forest Service
