Judge halts Tongass timber sale
By The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A federal judge in Anchorage has halted a timber sale in a roadless area of the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska.

District Court Judge John Sedwick issued an injunction Monday and ordered the U.S. Forest Service to halt the Orion North timber sale.

The environmental group Earthjustice says the project was devised more than a decade ago. Since then, Earthjustice says, the costs of the timber sale have skyrocketed while the bottom has fallen out of Tongass timber markets.

The group says the project near Ketchikan would have cost taxpayers $1.6 million to build roads in the national forest, while generating only $140,635 from the trees.

© Copyright 2009, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company