The Flathead Forest’s Granite Moccasin Project does not deserve to be excused from public oversight requirements just because it says it is an emergency. It admits only 2% of the 67,500-acre project area is in fuels reduction “priority areas.”
The Project states only half of the treatments qualify for the Emergency Action Determination it intends to use to deny the public the right to Object to the project. It admits only half of the treatment units are even in the Wildland Urban Interface.
Emergency scare tactics draw attention away from the 1,300 acres of proposed clearcuts and nearly-clearcuts, 20 of which exceed the 40-acre limit. They are intended to excuse adding 7.6 miles of logging roads to the already bloated road system while claiming this would not increase total road density, a rationale the courts have twice ruled unlawful.
The Pinnacle Creek and Granite Creek areas have a history of excessive logging, road slumping and culvert failures that put dirt into creeks, contributing to a 1,117% increase in sediment in Pinnacle Creek. Bull trout redd counts (egg nests) are down to 17 in Granite Creek, from 41 in 2010, and only two redds have been found in Bear Creek. Sediment is known to smother bull trout and other fish eggs. These are areas where the Project would build more roads, not remove their culverts after use, and still not count them as roads!
In 1993, the Flathead prepared a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Middle Fork Ecosystem Management Project, which showed significant sediment increases in Dicky, Paola, Pinnacle, and Tunnel Creeks. It concluded “the existing water yield increase is partly from roads and partly from timber harvest units … The existing sediment yield increase is from roads. Roads will continue to generate sediment indefinitely unless they are restored to pre-road condition.”
But the Flathead doesn’t intend to reclaim roads or prepare an EIS for the even larger Granite Moccasin Project, in spite of proposing more new roads and doing more logging in addition to what has taken place since the 1990s. A drive up Highway 2 and nearby logging roads shows the Flathead has already done a lot of fuels-reduction logging near Essex, Pinnacle and smaller communities. Now it wants to log in more distant areas as though it’s for our own good.
Research shows thinning forests dries them out and allows the wind to increase the rate of fire spread. It shows the survivability of buildings depends on what they are made of and the vegetation immediately next to them. It shows the vast majority of wildfires are started by human near roads.
If this project were about reducing the likelihood of wildfire and protecting powerlines and buildings, it would remove the trees that can strike them, retrofit the buildings with fire-resistance materials and clean up around them, and not build roads into the backcountry. Instead, it uses emergency scare tactics to feed public trees to private sawmills – with no public Objections allowed!
Keith Hammer is chair of Swan View Coalition.