Houston Regional Group - News

The Sierra Club lost the part of the Sierra Club vs. Jacobs lawsuit that deals with the requirement to inventory/monitor management indicator species (MIS) in Sam Houston National Forest (SHNF) on Tuesday, December 5, 2007, when Federal District Court Judge Vanessa Gilmore ruled against the Club and for the U.S. Forest Service (FS). A MIS is a plant or animal species whose health is an indicator of the health of other species or habitats.

Sierra Club vs. Jacobs is the lawsuit that covers timber sales in the Sam Houston National Forest including Compartments 28/37 Project (959 acres) and the Boswell Creek Healthy Forest Initiative Pilot Project (over 7,000 acres). Earlier in 2006 the Sierra Club won the part of Sierra Club vs. Jacobs that covers the requirement to inventory/monitor Proposed, Endangered, Threatened, and Sensitive (PETS) species in SHNF.

Judge Gilmore said that the FS can collect data from all the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas (Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Angelina, and Sabine National Forests), even though they are scores of miles apart, and combine the data together to determine whether there are viable population trends for MIS (for example, Pileated Woodpecker) instead of establishing a population trend for MIS in each national forest (for example, Sam Houston National Forest).

The Judge ruled that the FS had done all the inventorying/monitoring it was required to do under the National Forest Management Act. The only data that was not collected was for snags (standing dead trees). Since snags are not a plant or animal species (even though the FS listed them as a MIS) the court dismissed the point.

The Sierra Club will move for reconsideration of the Judge's decision in the MIS part of the lawsuit. Although the Texas Committee on Natural Resources (TCONR) was a co-plaintiff with the Sierra Club and demonstrated it had standing to file the lawsuit the Judge said that TCONR did not have standing. Standing is a legal term that means that you have shown you have the right to press your claim in court.

If the FS appeals our victory in the PETS part of the lawsuit to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans then the Sierra Club will defend the Judge's decision.

Special thanks go to TCONR and our attorneys, Eric Huber (Sierra Club staff attorney from Boulder, Colorado) and Joe Dodson (Gibbs-Bruns attorney), and Scott Morgan (Gibbs-Bruns legal assistant), for all the hard work they did on Sierra Club vs. Jacobs.

January 2007

Last updated:  12/16/2006.   Content © 1999-2006 by the Sierra Club.