RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service has abandoned logging plans it suspended in the mountains above Lake Tahoe nearly two years ago.
The move comes after a prominent scientist filed a lawsuit in 2012 accusing the agency of acting illegally under the guise of reducing wildfire threats that don't exist.
Dennis Murphy, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Nevada, welcomed the cancellation of the fuels reduction project in an old-growth forest about 8 miles southwest of the lake.
But he says the legal fight will continue in federal court partly because the Forest Service left behind slash piles of timber waste from hundreds of trees cut before the project was suspended. Ironically, he says the agency actually increased fire risks that previously were of little concern.
