This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Environmental Congress and High Uintas Preservation Council have filed a lawsuit against the Ashley National Forest to halt a large timber sale near the eastern ridgeline of the Uinta Mountains. The suit, filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for Utah, claims that the 9.2 million board-foot transaction, known as the Trout Slope West timber sale, will remove some of the most valuable old growth forest left in the heavily forested eastern Uintas. "High value deer and elk summer range and hiding cover will be destroyed at the landscape level by this timber sale," UEC Executive Director Kevin Mueller said in a statement. "Downstream water quality is already impaired, and increased erosion from this timber sale will only further harm water quality," he said. The groups also say that old growth standards have been violated, claiming that Ashley National Forest failed to do required inventories of old growth to determine if it would meet standards after cutting in the approved areas.
