Stop post-fire logging on 600 acres in Nezperce-Clearwater
Wepah Salvage
U.S. Forest Service· Nezperce-Clearwater National Forest, Palouse Ranger DistrictU.S. Forest Service project page ↗
Forest ServiceWe track this on the agency’s own system of record, where most on-the-ground decisions live.
The groups on this fight
4 groups work Idaho
By footprint, from the same match the STAND matchmaker runs; none is linked to this decision in our record yet. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- Advocates for the West
Works Idaho: represented Western Watersheds Project in the Jarbidge grazing litigation, winning 2004 and 2005 NEPA rulings, a 2009 injunction that grazing-as-usual must end, and a 2011 order closing 17 allotments across the 625,000-acre resource area..
- Center for Biological Diversity
Works Idaho: plaintiff and co-counsel in the February 2025 lawsuit arguing federal wildlife agencies violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and wolverine from the mine..
- Idaho Conservation League
Works Idaho: mobilized Idahoans to file Interior Department comments defending Craters of the Moon during the 2017 national monument review, arguing shrinkage would damage the economies of Blaine, Butte, Minidoka, and Power counties..
- Western Watersheds Project
Works Idaho: has litigated BLM grazing mismanagement across 1.4 million acres of the Jarbidge and Bruneau river canyonlands since the early 2000s, winning injunctions against permit overruns and Ninth Circuit-affirmed orders requiring allotment assessments and stream protections..
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
The Forest Service wants to log 600 burned acres before the forest can naturally recover.
What’s at risk
Post-fire forests on the Nezperce-Clearwater provide critical habitat and soil stability that logging can permanently disrupt. Salvage logging and 30 miles of road activity accelerate erosion and remove the standing dead trees that wildlife depend on after fire.
If this goes through
Once approved, 600 acres of fire-affected forest will be logged and 30 miles of roads will be expanded or opened, causing lasting damage to soils, streams, and recovering habitat.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
4 holes in the agency’s own analysis
What the public could have raised, from the agency’s own document
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- The Forest Service should justify why salvage logging 600 acres burned by the White Pine Fire on the Nezperce-Clearwater National Forest is preferable to allowing natural post-fire recovery.
- Opening or maintaining 9 miles of temporary roads risks long-term soil and watershed damage on the Palouse Ranger District beyond what the fire itself caused.
- The proposal bundles visitor infrastructure changes at the Giant White Pine Trailhead with industrial salvage logging, and these distinct activities deserve separate environmental review under NEPA.
- Road maintenance across 21 miles of existing roads combined with new temporary routes will increase sediment and runoff impacts in an already fire-affected landscape.
Show all 6 points from the document
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
In the agency’s own words
Salvage of 600 acres of trees as a result of White Pine Fire with intermediate and regeneration harvest. Road maintenance on 21 miles of road, and 9 miles of temporary roads. Bridge replacement on trail #221-A and visitor parking improvements at Giant White Pine Trailhead.
The reporting behind this
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