Several environmental advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday to stop the sale of the Southside Project, a stretch of the Nantahala National Forest in Macon and Jackson Counties near Cashiers. Local conservation groups argued that the area holds old growth forest and rare salamanders that would be harmed by logging plans.
The 317-acres have been the subject of controversy for many years. The logging project was first proposed in 2017 and after debate, the rights to log 98-acres of the area were sold in 2022.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed suit Wednesday on behalf of a coalition of conservation groups including Sierra Club, the Chattooga Conservancy, The Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Mountain True, over another tract of the Southside Project that has not yet been logged. The lawsuit stated that the Southside Project area is a “Forest Service-designated ‘exceptional ecological community.’”
“Logging in this area so harmful that it is inconsistent even with a Forest Plan that fails to protect the values that make the Nantahala National Forest exceptional,” Patrick Hunter, managing attorney of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Asheville Office, said in a press release. “The Forest Service must scrap this reckless logging project in order to comply with federal law.”
The lawsuit was filed by non-profits the Sierra Club, the Chattooga Conservancy, The Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Mountain True.
The legal complaint focused on a 15-acre stand, identified as Compartment 41, Stand 53 of the Nantahala National Forest.
Nicole Hayler, director of the Chattooga Conservancy, said the push to log in the area is representative of a larger issue with the Forest Service.
“The Southside Project is a case study of the Forest Service’s reckless resolve to push harmful logging onto exceptional landscapes,” Hayler said in a press release. “Logging in this area along the Whitewater River is a prime example of the root of the problem: deeply flawed, perverse incentives driving the Forest Service to hit mandated timber targets, which is why the entire Southside Project should be dropped.”
At the time of the 2022 sale of rights, Forest Service Public Affairs Officer Cathy Dowd told BPR that the Forest Service worked with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission to evaluate the recent salamander findings and implement additional mitigations to maintain the habitat.
MountainTrue, a conservation organization, said they put in a bid on the track in 2022. Dowd told BPR that they did not receive a bid from Mountain True.
“We accepted a responsive bid that will enable us to implement the project which will improve wildlife habitat and forest health in an area that lacks early successional habitat which is critical for many wildlife species. We have the support of the NC Wildlife Resources Commission because of the positive effects this project will have for wildlife,” Dowd told BPR in an email in 2022.
Dowd explained to the Smoky Mountain News that MountainTrue did not follow the appropriate bidding process.
MountainTrue clarified to BPR that the nonprofit could not go through official channels to purchase the timber rights in the 2022 Southside Timber sale. The group sent an email to District Ranger of the Nantahala District of the Nantahala National Forest Service Troy Waskey with Forest Supervisor James Melonas and Deputy Regional Forester Ken Arney on the day that the Nantahala National Forest was unsealing bids for project.
Dowd acknowledged the email offering to buy carbon credits, which she said the Forest Service does not have authority to sell, in the Asheville Citizen-Times in 2022.
In the email, MountainTrue Field Biologist Josh Kelly explains that, “I realize the offer is unconventional and there may not be an official channel at this time for the Forest Service to receive a payment of this type. However, I think the offer should be taken seriously.”
Public lands field biologist Josh Kelly of MountainTrue said the Forest Service continues to prioritize logging over conservation.
"With both the Forest Plan and this Southside Timber Sale, Forest Service leaders have put commercial logging first and ignored federal law and overwhelming public support for conserving our most beloved natural areas and landscapes,” Josh Kelly, public lands field biologist for MountainTrue, said in a 2024 press release.
“Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are big enough to accommodate sustainable logging practices and create new early successional habitats for hunters without destroying an area that the Forest Service itself has deemed an 'exceptional ecological community' with 'features that are not found anywhere else in [...] the Eastern United States.' Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to take a public interest lawsuit to get the Forest Service to act responsibly and comply with federal law."
The same coalition of conservation groups sent a 60-Day Notice of Intent to Sue to the Forest Service in July 2023 for the passage of the Nantahala Pisgah Forest Plan.
However, the SELC has not yet filed the Endangered Species Act litigation, a spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. The lawsuit alleged the Forest Service used inaccurate and incomplete information during the planning process which causes the plan to “imperil endangered wildlife.”
This story has been updated to reflect additional information about MountainTrue's offer to purchase Southside carbon credits.
