April 20, 2026
The U.S. Forest Service on April 16 released a draft decision to proceed with Silver Branch Vegetation Management Project in the Ottawa National Forest, located in Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula. The draft decision rejected requests from several organizations and businesses to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impacts of the massive logging project and potential alternatives before moving forward with the proposal.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Forest Service is required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to fully consider the impacts of the Silver Branch project—which would be the Ottawa National Forest’s largest logging project in at least a quarter century, covering about 200 square miles. The Forest Service is also required to identify and evaluate potential alternatives to the project that would better protect the Ottawa’s vital natural resources and wildlife. Instead, the Forest Service decided to advance the logging project after issuing a short environmental assessment in late December that declared the project wouldn’t have any significant impacts and offered no alternatives.
The Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) in January submitted joint comments to the Forest Service on the Silver Branch environmental assessment, pointing to clearly significant impacts from the proposed logging on the mature forest, endangered species, habitat, biodiversity, freshwater resources, wilderness, and outdoor recreation. In light of these impacts, the comments called upon the agency to fulfill its obligation to prepare a thorough EIS. Eight U.P.-based and statewide organizations and businesses, and a national environmental group signed onto ELPC’s comments. ELPC also submitted a letter signed by 21 Michigan companies and organizations representing thousands of Michiganders calling for an EIS and expressing their serious concern about the project’s impact on the national forest.
ELPC Senior Policy Advocate Kelly Thayer said, “The Forest Service is clearly wrong to claim this project would not have significant impacts and should not be studied further. The Silver Branch Vegetation Management Project is historically massive, proposing to log across an area of Ottawa National Forest nearly 1.5 times the size of the city of Detroit. It would clear-cut 25,000 acres and log an additional 55,000 acres of national forest lands, impacting wildlife, wilderness, mature and old-growth trees, and the outdoor recreational economy for generations to come. We intend to challenge this decision.”
The proposed Silver Branch project would impact an area that extends for about 40 miles from the northern border of the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness Area south to U.S. 2 near Iron River. It would log for miles along the gorge’s wilderness boundary and log over a 2,000-acre proposed wilderness addition. The vast project encompasses more than one-eighth of the entire national forest and about one-quarter of the Ottawa’s public lands deemed suitable for commercial logging.
The Ottawa National Forest’s release of the Silver Branch draft decision notice triggers a 45-day objection period through approximately late May.