If there is one thing we can depend on, it is Michael Garrity and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies litigating another forest restoration project proposed by the U.S. Forest Service. This time Mr. Garrity wants to stop the Ripley Project, which is in the Kootenai National Forest and adjacent to the community of Libby.
This 29,000-acre project was developed following the disastrous 2017 wildfire season that destroyed over 200,000 acres of the Kootenai National Forest. Included in those conflagrations was the West Fork Fire, which threatened residential areas north of Libby, prompting evacuations and burning tens of thousands of acres of privately-owned forest lands.
In an effort to protect the community from further risks of wildfire, the Forest Service, Lincoln County, the Kootenai Valley Stakeholders, Montana DNRC, and other private landowners joined forces to develop the Ripley Project to protect the community and provide restoration services for other resources including wildlife and water.
It seems the safety of people living in and near Libby and other resource values aren’t important to Mr. Garrity, although he professes in his lawsuit that grizzly bears and Canada lynx aren’t getting the protections they deserve. What Mr. Garrity is really hoping for is that he can find a chink in the 322-page environmental analysis prepared by the Forest Service and approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the hopes that a judge will rule that the project analysis was...
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