Ninth Circuit sides with Forest Service in challenge to Idaho logging project

The Ninth Circuit sided with the U.S. Forest Service on part of a long-running fight over the Hanna Flats logging project in the Idaho Panhandle, reversing a lower court that had ruled for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. The panel found the project actually reduces road mileage in a grizzly bear recovery zone, and that an apparent 22.4-mile overage was really the result of an undercount when the 2011 baseline was first drawn up.

The case, which involves commercial logging, prescribed burning and road building near Selkirk grizzly habitat, has bounced between district court and the appeals court since 2021. A separate track of the same lawsuit, decided in July by the same panel, still allows the Alliance to pursue a claim that the project needs full environmental review.

The case now returns to a federal magistrate judge in Boise for further proceedings on the road-mileage claim.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.