Page 24 - Flathead Beacon // 5.20.2015

24 | MAY 20, 2015
NEWS
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LOGGING
Continued from page 5
threatens lynx and grizzly bear habitat. Last October, Kootenai National Forest officials approved the sale of roughly 39 million board feet of tim- ber northeast of Libby. The timber sale, named the East Reservoir Project, calls for the harvest and fuel treatment of 8,845 acres near Lake Koocanusa, ap-
proximately 15 miles east of Libby.
The timber total represents more board feet than the Kootenai National Forest typically harvests in a year. The timber harvest in 2012 was 24 million board feet. During the logging heyday of the 1980s, however, the annual Kootenai timber harvest often topped 200 million
board feet.
The project will be spread out over
three individual contracts, two of which – totaling 6.3 million board feet – have already been awarded and, barring a court-ordered injunction, will move for- ward.
Following the approval of the proj- ect, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue un- der the Endangered Species Act, citing potential harm to threatened and en- dangered species and their habitats. On May 11, the group filed suit in U.S. Dis- trict Court in Missoula.
U.S. District Judge Dana Chris- tensen is presiding over the case, which names as defendants Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Christopher Savage; Regional Forester of Region One of the U.S. Forest Service Faye Krueger; the U.S. Forest Service; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Calling it “one of the worst logging projects in decades,” Mike Garrity, ex- ecutive director for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, announced the group went to federal court because the “mas- sive clearcut and logging project” would affect tens of thousands of acres of na- tional forest and five major tributaries to the Kootenai River and Lake Koocanusa.
While boasting a large sea of timber, the two forests also contain nearly 2 mil- lion acres of protected wilderness and hundreds of animals, including many threatened or endangered species, such as grizzly bears, bull trout and lynx.
“The [Environmental Impact State- ment] for this logging project is so full of misrepresentations, omissions, and egregious violations of a host of federal laws that we really had no choice except to challenge it in court,” Garrity stated in a news release. “It’s so bad even the Forest Service had to acknowledge that it was violating its own Forest Plan – and then sought to illegally amend the For- est Plan to exempt itself from protecting grizzlies, bull trout, and lynx as required by the Endangered Species Act.”
But Robyn King, of the Yaak Valley Forest Council, said conservationists, loggers, mill workers, and sportsmen came together to support and inform the “substantial but carefully crafted logging and forest-restoration project.”
“As neighbors, we’ve put four years of hard work into helping plan the proj-
ect,” King said.
Kootenai Forest Planning and Re-
sources Officer Quinn Carver said the project, while large, was vetted by the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition, a group that includes the Yaak Valley Forest Council; managers of F.H. Stol- tze Land & Lumber Co.; the Idaho For- est Group; and the Montana Wilderness Association.
“We brought this before the stake- holders,” he said. “It has been carefully vetted by the stakeholders.”
One of the major objections of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is site-spe- cific amendments that exempt the East Reservoir Project from stipulations un- der the old Kootenai Forest Plan, which was updated earlier this year.
One of the amendments allows clear- cutting on forested parcels larger than 40 acres, which the old plan set as the limit.
Carver said it’s not unusual to allow site-specific amendments, neither in the Kootenai National Forest nor others.
Garrity said Alliance for the Wild Rockies has been involved with the proj- ect since it was proposed about five years ago, and raised objections that weren’t addressed before filing the lawsuit.
He alleged the project violates the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Admin- istrative Policy Act.
He also said the Forest Service would spend $2.6 million subsidizing the proj- ect, which would add 3,458 acres of new clear-cuts in an area that already has about 22,000 acres of old clear-cuts.
“The project is a huge money-loser which, by the Forest Service’s own es- timate, will cost taxpayers $2,589,535 to subsidize further degradation of an already-degraded landscape in a time when timber prices have declined by nearly 30 percent this year,” Garrity said.
Of the 39 million board feet to be har- vested, roughly 24 million will be sawlog volume and the balance non-sawlog to support local small log markets.
The East Reservoir Project includes 8,845 acres of commercial logging, 5,563 acres of pre-commercial thinning, 35.5 miles of roads changed to non-mo- torized trail, 10,049 acres of fuels and wildlife treatments, and 78 million cu- bic board feet of timber harvested. The project would produce an estimated 629 jobs.
“Our coalition includes not only tim- ber and economic development groups but also a slate of local and regional con- servation groups. Together, we’ve iden- tified opportunities for timber harvest, identified prime habitats that are better off left alone and seized opportunities to repair old scars on the land to improve water quality,” King wrote in a state- ment on behalf of the stakeholders co- alition. “We are confident that the effort will withstand legal challenge.”
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