MISSOULA - A federal appeals court has ruled against the U.S. Forest Service in a lawsuit over a logging proposal in the Lolo National Forest, calling the agency's decision to harvest timber in areas that were burned by the fires of 2000 "arbitrary and capricious."

The decision reverses a 2003 ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals likened the Forest Service's efforts to thin old-growth stands for forest health without knowing how those efforts would affect wildlife to pharmaceutical companies marketing drugs without ensuring that they're safe and effective.

 
But one justice asserted in a written dissent that the court had gone too far and had "crossed the line from reviewer to decision maker."

At issue is a debate over a portion of the 74,000 acres burned on the Lolo National Forest in August and September of 2000.

The Forest Service proposed to log about 4,600 acres in and around the burned area. In support of that proposal, the agency crafted a 1,900-page environmental impact statement that included 150 maps and about 20,000 pages of background information.

The Ecology Center of Missoula sued to stop the timber sale, saying the agency had inadequately considered impacts of post-fire salvage logging on soil, old-growth trees and two species of woodpeckers.

In his 2003 ruling, Molloy noted that while the Ecology Center and the Forest Service disagreed on the benefits or harm caused by salvage logging, he wasn't "in a position to settle scientific disputes."

"While the court need not forgive a 'clear error of judgment,' neither may the court substitute its own judgment for that of the Forest Service," Molloy wrote.

The 9th Circuit's majority opinion, written by Justice Betty Binns Fletcher, found the agency's decision to log "arbitrary and capricious" and challenged the science the Forest Service used to support its decision.

"While Ecology Center does not offer proof that the proposed treatment causes the harm it fears, the Service does not offer proof that the proposed treatment benefits - or at least does not harm - old growth-dependent species," Fletcher wrote.

Justice Margaret McKeown, in a written dissent, said the ruling went too far and that the court shouldn't be in the business of deciding which Forest Service reports are reliable or pass judgment on an employee's field notes.

"Apparently, we no longer simply determine whether the Forest Service's methodology involves a 'hard look' through the use of 'hard data,' but now are called upon to make fine-grained judgments of its worth," she wrote.