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A judge has ordered the state Department of Natural Resources to conduct a full environmental impact statement on its proposed new timber management plan for Blanchard Mountain.

King County Superior Court Judge Susan J. Craighead ruled that DNR erred in its determination of non-significance when evaluating the impact of its proposed strategies for managing the Blanchard Mountain Trust lands. Her ruling was issued on Tuesday.

A group called the Chuckanut Conservancy, which seeks to preserve more of the mountain’s forests, had sued DNR over its failure to perform a full EIS on its new logging plan.

The judge called Blanchard Mountain “a unique place, both because of its proximity to rapidly growing urban areas in Skagit and Whatcom counties and because it is the only place where the Cascade foothills come down to Puget Sound.”

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