CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Two environmental groups are suing the federal government to halt a logging project in the White Mountain National Forest, saying the plan was not adequately reviewed and would ruin a unique forest environment.

The Sierra Club and Forest Watch say planned clearcuts and road building in the White Mountain National Forest would open up the Wild River Inventoried Roadless Area, a more than 70,000-acre stretch of forest near the Wildcat River watershed.

“The logging and associated road building – as planned by the Forest Service – will cause significant harm to soil and important watersheds, irreversibly alter the characteristics of the inventoried roadless area, and prevent a future wilderness designation,” according to the complaint submitted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Concord.

“Hikers will be able to see a total of 60 acres of new clear-cut openings from Wildcat Peak on the Appalachian Trial. These visual scars on the land are inconsistent with the purposes of a national scenic trail,” the complaint said.

The complaint names Thomas Wagner, White Mountain National Forest Supervisor, Abigail Kimball, U.S. Forest Service Chief, the U.S. Forest Service, Michael Johanns, Secretary of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture as defendants.

Wagner was not immediately available to comment on the lawsuit Thursday afternoon; a Forest Service spokeswoman said she had not seen the complaint and could not comment.

The Sierra Club has been fighting the project for more than a year.

“It is really the last part of the Northeast that has this kind of wild country,” said John Harbison, a Vermont-based lawyer for the Sierra Club. He said the Forest Service broke the law and did not sufficiently review the environmental impact of the logging project, which calls for 1,700 feet of permanent roads and cutting of 929 acres of forest, including 464 acres within the Wild River roadless area.

“They did a very short, brief examination and determined that there would not be any harm, and therefore they did not have to do an in-depth examination,” he said. “This is the largest roadless area east of the Mississippi River. They’re going to clear-cut – cut all the trees down – several hundred acres … Common sense would tell anyone that that’s going to result in some environmental harm.”

AP-ES-08-16-07 1805EDT