U.S. SENATE — U.S. Senator Steve Daines today released the following statement on the Friends of the Wild Swan (FOWS), Swan View Coalition (SVC), Alliance for the Wild Rockies (A WR) and Native Ecosystems Council (NEC) 60-Day Notice of Intent to Sue under the Endangered Species Act, Beaver Creek Project. The Notice of Intent was submitted on August 25.
The Beaver Creek Project was developed in a collaborative fashion with the South West Crown Collaborative and others in the area with a goal to mitigate the threat of wildfire to the nearby Lindbergh Lake community.
“It defies decency that yet another radical environmentalist group would sue to block a needed forest management project that would reduce fire danger,” Daines stated.
The litigants used the Ninth Circuit’s Cottonwood decision as their justification for suing to block the Southwest Crown Collaborative. Daines led the Montana delegation in introducing legislation to reverse the Cottonwood decision from the Ninth Circuit that is being used in this case to stop the project in the Flathead National Forest.
There are currently five forest health project that have been in halted in Montana because of the Cottonwood decision: Stonewall Vegetation Project (today there are two fires burning on that potential project: Park Creek and Arrastra Creek), Greater Red Lodge Vegetation Management Project, East Boulder Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project and Bozeman Municipal Watershed Project (one court case, two projects) and the East Reservoir Restoration Project.
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