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HELENA - A judge has blocked a federal timber sale north of Livingston and the U.S. Forest Service says it will address his concerns promptly, in the hope that logging then can proceed.

A group that challenged the logging, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said the Gallatin National Forest’s Smith Creek Timber Sale should be stopped indefinitely by the order that U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued this week in Missoula.

The logging in the Crazy Mountains about 35 miles north of Livingston cannot take place because the Forest Service did not map key elk habitat adequately, Molloy ruled in a lawsuit filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, the Native Ecosystems Council and an owner of land near the sale.

Denying part of the judgment they sought, Molloy said the Forest Service “has complied with the law for the most part.”

Gallatin National Forest spokeswoman Marna Daley said tree thinning on about 800 acres was planned as a way to reduce fire risk to the public and firefighters, particularly where the national forest is near private land, and to improve evacuation. There is only one route in and out. The area to be logged is near a subdivision with about 30 homes.

Daley said the elk mapping is a “fairly minor technicality” that the Forest Service hopes to resolve promptly, although no timetable has been set.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies executive Michael Garrity said the Forest Service had not met the mapping requirement because “there is not enough elk habitat left to map.” Earlier logging ruined it, Garrity said. He also said roads have eliminated places for elk to hide.

Molloy said the Forest Service’s Smith Creek plan meets a requirement for protection of places where elk can hide and find security.

He also rejected arguments that the Forest Service should have considered whether climate change will cause droughts negating the fire-suppression purposes of the project; that the Forest Service contradicted federal forest and environmental laws by violating soil-quality standards; and that sediment from the Smith Creek project would jeopardize Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

Forest Service plans for keeping dead, standing trees are adequate, Molloy said. The trees, called snags, are part of the habitat for certain wildlife.

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