TACOMA — An environmental group is suing the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to let the Navy use Olympic National Forest for expanded electronic-warfare training exercises.
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a Eugene, Ore.-based nonprofit, is asking a federal judge to vacate a special-use permit issued to the Navy on July 31.
The five-year permit allows the Navy to drive three mobile electronic transmitters onto roads in the forest and park them at 11 designated pullouts for eight to 16 hours per day.
The transmitters would engage in targeting exercises with radar-jamming EA-6B Prowler jet pilots from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
“The mobile emitters and associated yellow caution tape will alter the visual character of the roadside by imposing a military-type appearance,” the Sept. 15 lawsuit says.
“The Forest Service failed to consider this impact of parking military-style vehicles and associated yellow caution tape to the visual character of these backcountry sites visited by national forest recreationalists.”
U.S. Forest Service regional spokeswoman Shoshona Pilip-Florea declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday, citing a standing policy to not comment on pending litigation.
Navy spokesman Mike Welding also declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so.
The action for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Tacoma.
It asks the court to vacate the permit and to declare that the Forest Service violated the National Forest Management Act, or NFMA, when it issued the permit.
Most of the mobile-emitter trucks would be parked in the west side of Olympic National Forest north and south of the Quinault reservation and in areas east of Forks, according to an environmental assessment.
Training would not occur on weekends or federal holidays.
The Navy has been conducting electronic warfare training over the Olympic Peninsula since the 1960s, Welding has said.
The special-use permit would not increase the number of training flights by more than 10 percent, or one additional flight per day, according to the Forest Service and Navy.
In the lawsuit, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics alleges that expanded electronic warfare training will “degrade the backcountry recreational experience” enjoyed by its 8,000 members.
It also alleges that the Forest Service violated the National Forest Management Act because it did not consider a private land option for Navy training as required by Olympic National Forest’s 1989 Land and Resource Management Plan.
The Navy considered private land to locate fixed emitters but not mobile emitters, according to the lawsuit.
“The Forest Service also failed to explain how its permitting decision gives priority to the interests and needs of the general public over those of the Navy, also in violation of the LRMP [Land and Resource Management Plan],” the lawsuit said.
“Finally, the Forest Service failed to determine that the permitted activity is compatible, and in harmony with, the surrounding landscape, as the LRMP requires.”
The Forest Service had not filed a response to the lawsuit in federal court as of Friday.
The case was assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Fricke.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
