Court blocks national forest logging

[The Straight Story]

Court blocks national forest logging

June 11, 2005

Associated Press

ROCHESTER — In a victory for three environmental groups, a federal appeals court has blocked plans to log a section of the Green Mountain National Forest in Chittenden and Rochester.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York this week sided with the groups Forest Watch, Friends of the Earth and the Forest Conservation Council, ruling that the Forest Service failed to follow its own regulations in evaluating the 316-acre timber sale in an area of the forest known as the Old Joe section.

The appeals court sent the dispute back to U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha in Vermont. Under the ruling, if the Forest Service wants to continue pushing the sale, it must conduct a new analysis.

Murtha ruled in favor of the Forest Service a year ago, clearing the way for the largest timber sale in years — 1 million board feet — in the forest.

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