USFWS bull-trout opinion halts Swan Valley logging project
After nonprofit organizations challenged a 2015 finding that logging wouldn’t affect bull trout, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently reversed itself, stopping a logging project at the edge of the Mission Mountain Wilderness.
On Friday, Flathead National Forest Supervisor Chip Weber announced he was withdrawing his Notice of No Significant Impact involving the Cold Jim Fuels Reduction and Forest Health Project in the Swan Lake District. The project was intended to be part of an effort to reduce fuels in the wildland-urban interface. In a May 12 letter, Weber said his September 2016 decision to allow the logging project to move forward was based on USFWS biologists agreeing that bull trout in the area about 3 miles northwest of Condon would not be affected.
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