MFMU v. Barbouletos
Lawsuit Update 2009
and
Badger Two Medicine Lawsuit
Montanans For Multiple Use
has been advocating for active professional natural resource
management and public access for use and enjoyment of those
resources on public land for nearly two decades. Hundreds
of volunteer days have been dedicated to that mission attending
meetings, rallies, conferences, field trips, testifying at hearings,
etc. Many more days of writing comment letters and appeals
when our comments were ignored by decision makers. Years of
participation and public comment proved ineffective in
making a meaningful difference on Federal land management
decisions. over the last two decades, National
Forests have incrementally been closed to motorized
access reducing pro-active management of forests a
let-it-die and burn while wood utilization infrastructure
disappears.
Since citizen participation
failed to produce meaningful results, MFMU
filed in June, 2003 a lawsuit against the US
Forest Service in Washington DC District Court. Now, more
than six years later, we are still fighting to get a meaningful
review of the merits and substance of our complaint. The
District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals both claimed weak
legal technicalities to refuse a full trial review of evidence to
support our complaint.
Our latest action in this
case was to ask for a full seven judge Circuit Court
review of the three judge panel rejection of our appeal of
the District Court decision. Our request
was denied, so now MFMU attorney Mark Pollot is preparing the
formal appeal to the Supreme Court. The MFMU Board decided not
to abandon the hundreds of hours of effort and more than $100,000 of
support from MFMU members over seven years without pursuing every
possibility of getting a complete and fair legal
review of the issues.
The strategy of our 2003
lawsuit was to attack the illegal closure of roads not owned by the
Forest Service (RS 2477 public rights of ways), and the overall
forest management direction provided by a 1986 Forest Plan that has
been illegally revised with incremental, cumulative, piecemeal
amendments as well as the biased lack of action in implementing
the Plan provision for active forest management and
protection. Additional claims were raised regarding
non-compliance with other Federal laws such as the Small
Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act.
MFMU is now going to work on
another strategy of attacking one of the piecemeal cumulative
site-specific decisions the Forest Service is using to gradually
shut down public access to the forest. MFMU has joined as
co-plaintiffs in the October 1, 2009 litigation of the Lewis
and Clark National Forest Badger Two Medicine decision to ban
motorized use on the nearly 130,000 acre area. Other plaintiffs are:
Clifford and Julie Fortune, Theo and Dianna Crawford, Arley
Jolliffe, Dewayne Blackman, Larry Brown, the Montana Trial Vehicle
Riders and Capital Trail Vehicle Riders associations. Attorney
Cory Swanson is asking for an injunction against implementation of
the travel plan for the 129,500-acre Badger-Two Medicine (BTM)
area.
The 38 page complaint advances a
favored Native American religion on a large portion of the BTM in
violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution; it violates the rights of Blackfeet
Tribal members to access this area under rights reserved to them in
an 1895 Treaty with the United States Government; and it violates
the United States Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal
protection of the law by enacting a recreation ban that can only be
enforced against non-Blackfeet Tribal members on the basis of race,"
according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also attacks the use of
grizzly bear as the reason to exclude motorized while allowing
non-motorized access, as well as violation of NFMA, NEPA, and
Administrative Procedures Act claims. Montana US District
Court Judge Sam Hatton, Great Falls Division, has been assigned
the case.
Only with your support can MFMU
continue to fight for your interest in good stewardship of public
resources and your right to use public land.
For copies of the lawsuit complaint
documents (Fortune V. Thompson) and declaration documents in PDF
format, contact Fred D. Hodgeboom, President Montanans For
Multiple Use 406.837-1363 or email to
hodgeboom@centurytel.net
