Moscow Outdoor Potluck
FOC will be throwing a Summer Potluck/Barbecue on Friday, August 27th at East City Park picnic shelter in Moscow From 5pm to 9pm, please join us for hot food, soft drinks, and good conversation. The event is free and open to the public. Bring a friend. We will provide an entrée. We encourage people to bring their own reusable plates but will have compostable paper plates and utensils on hand.
The delta variant of COVID-19 has been spreading in Moscow, so this will be fully outside and socially distanced. The FOC staff is fully vaccinated, but if you are concerned about your health or safety, please feel free to bring a mask or your own food. Also, please RSVP to the office (paul@friendsoftheclearwater.org or 208-882-9755) so we can better plan to make this a fun and safe event.
Lolo Creek Court Win
We are happy to announce that Friends of the Clearwater and Alliance for the Wild Rockies won our court challenge to halt yet another massive logging and road building project in federally-designated Critical Habitat for steelhead in the upper watershed of Lolo Creek, which flows into the Clearwater River.
While we didn’t win on every issue, the court faulted the government for failing to abide by the consultation requirements of the Endangered Species Act after historic declines in Steelhead numbers. Federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill concluded: “The Court finds Defendants’ decision to not reinitiate consultation to be arbitrary and capricious” in his Order halting the timber sale.
To read more about this important case, click here and to support FOC financially so we can continue to hold the Forest Service accountable, click here.
Clearcut Kings: U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Region stands alone in approving supersized clearcuts on national forests
Friends of the Clearwater released a report on its investigation into the practice of logging “supersized” clearcuts on national forests in the U.S. Northern Rockies bioregion. Supersized clearcuts are over 40 acres in extent, which were largely prohibited by the National Forest Management Act of 1976. There are exceptions, though, and U.S. Forest Service Regional Foresters can approve requests for supersized clearcuts from Forest Supervisors.
These exceptions have become the rule. The report finds that from 2013 until March of 2021, the Forest Service’s Northern Region (which includes northern Idaho and Montana) approved 93,056 acres (roughly 145 square miles) of supersized clearcuts, an area about twice the size of the District of Columbia. To illustrate, a person with an average walking speed of three miles per hour would need two eight-hour days to traverse the perimeter of a contiguous square clearcut of that size. This new report also finds that none of the Forest Service regions adjacent to the Northern Region approved any supersized clearcuts over that time period. The national forests of the Northern Region encompass mostly Montana and northern Idaho, with slivers in adjacent Washington. Click here to access the report read more.