A Montana District Court ruling yesterday found that significant new roadbuilding projects in the Flathead National Forest will negatively impact Endangered Species Act-listed grizzly bears and bull trout. The court found that the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not lawfully examine the impacts to these species when the agencies greenlit the roadbuilding plan in 2018.

In 2019, conservation groups first challenged the 2018 revised Flathead National Forest Plan, the accompanying Environmental Impact Statement, and the FWS biological opinion in the U.S. District Court in Montana. The court ruled that the agencies’ analysis of impacts to grizzly bears and bull trout violated the Endangered Species Act, particularly in its arbitrary abandonment of the prior forest plan amendment the agencies credited with conserving the species. In response to the 2019 challenge, FWS made a series of minor but inadequate revisions to its biological opinion, which led conservation groups to sue again in 2022.

“We are pleased that the court once again recognized that roads harm grizzly bears and bull trout,” said Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan. “The Forest Service needs to heed these findings and provide on-the-ground protections for these imperiled species.”

“The government admits that illegal use of closed roads is a chronic problem, but has twice failed to account for those additional impacts to threatened grizzly bears,” said Keith Hammer, chair of Swan View Coalition. “We are pleased that the court has again sent the agencies back to the drawing board.”

“Unleashing a new wave of roadbuilding in the Flathead National Forest threatens to roll back three decades of progress in grizzly bear conservation and will add to the problems facing bull trout,” said Ben Scrimshaw, attorney with Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies Office. “As the courts have now twice ruled, the government cannot disregard these threats to imperiled wildlife.”

While yesterday’s court ruling agreed with the conservation groups on key points, it also recommended leaving the challenged plan provisions in place while the federal agencies attempt to cure defects in their analyses of the plan’s impacts. The groups continue to review the ruling and are considering all options to ensure that important grizzly bear and bull trout habitat is protected from harmful roadbuilding projects until the government complies with federal law.

Earthjustice represents Friends of the Wild Swan and Swan View Coalition in the lawsuit.