Scandal continues to swirl around a study, by an Oregon State University grad student, that looked at the pros and cons of logging forested land after a wildfire and found that the cons won out. In the latest twist, the Bureau of Land Management, which funded the study, suspended the remaining payments, saying the money may have been misused.

The results of the research, published last month in the journal Science – an accomplishment for a student – conflicted with current federal policy, which supports so-called salvage logging of burned forests. The study found that salvage logging killed seedlings, slowing the forest’s regeneration. According to a story in the Seattle Times, environmental groups pounced on the results to help argue against federal legislation that would expedite salvage logging.

The BLM suspended funds after raising questions about whether the student violated the terms of the grant, which prohibits use of the money to lobby Congress. The executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics accused the BLM of censoring the study because its results conflicted with federal policy, according to the newspaper story.

The Register-Guard, a newspaper in Eugene, Oregon, called the study “politically inconvenient.”

[via Tidepool]

Photo credit: USDA