Three environmental groups are going to court to try to stop a particularly contentious timber sale of old-growth trees in the country's largest national forest. Greenpeace, Cascadia Wildlands and the Tongass Conservation Society filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. It alleges that the U.S. Forest Service failed to comply with federal environmental laws in approving the Logjam timber sale last year in the Tongass National Forest.

The lawsuit alleges that the Forest Service failed to consider the Logjam timber sale's impact on wolves, deer and salmon in that part of the Tongass. It asks the court to force the Forest Service and its contractors to stop work on the project on 3,422 acres and send it back to the agency to make it comply with federal laws.

Attorneys for the agency in Juneau were evaluating the lawsuit and it was too soon to comment, said Ray Massey, Forest Service spokesman for the Alaska region.