A Court of Appeals has ordered the Forest Service to stop a logging project in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The court granted an injunction pending appeal that stops the road building and logging until at least next year when it can decide the merits of the case. In granting the injunction, the court found that the Forest Service appears to have violated the law when it approved the logging plan.

The court also found that the Forest Service exaggerated demand for Tongass logs and consequently designated much more land for logging than the agency’s own economists indicated was necessary to supply local mills.

“These are not small mistakes. Impacts of these errors are felt all over the Tongass, in places where Alaskans struggle to safeguard their hunting grounds, fisheries, and business opportunities,” said Bruce Baker, President of Southeast Alaska Conservation Council’s Board of Directors.

The court also found that the Forest Service disregarded its own scientists’ calls for stronger safeguards to protect fish and wildlife. The court order puts a number of other planned roadless area timber sales in the Tongass in question since they have all been planned using the same faulty demand calculation. The injunction temporarily stops construction of a new road that is part of the Sea Level timber sale project. Sea Level Creek is the last intact watershed in Thorne Arm on the South side of Revilla Island.

“The Sea Level watershed has important salmon and steelhead runs, but the issues here are much larger,” said Baker. “Time and time again, people have told the Forest Service to protect our wild watersheds. Instead, the agency has continued to push new roads and timber sales into places like Upper Tenakee Inlet, Gravina Island, and Port Houghton. The truth of the matter is that there’s plenty of Tongass timber on the existing 5,000 mile road system.”

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