Court decisions may pose threat to nation's timber supply.

The Latest court threat to timber management, a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Forest Service in federal court, takes advantage of imprecise wording in the National Environmental Policy Act in an attempt to provide preservationists with a formidable new weapon.

In a suit filed April 12 in the U.S. District Court of Washington, DC, four plaintiffs--the National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and the National Parks and Conservation Assn.--sought a declaratory judgment that the Forest Service has violated the NEPA by failing to file an environmental impact statement for its entire program for the fiscal year 1975, which begins July 1, 1974, and fiscal year 1976, to begin , July I, 1975.

The plaintiffs did not seek an injunction against Forest Service programs, but they indicated they reserve their options to do so at a Later date.

Alfred X. Baxter, president of the National Forest Products Assn., said if an injunction is sought and granted by the court, "it could bring the Forest Service programs to a halt beginning July I. The 20,000 people who work for the Forest Service would have Little to do after that date. The millions of Americans who avail themselves of all the Forest Service facilities would have no programs in existence to meet their needs after that date."