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FLATHEADBEACON | JULY 16, 2014
FEDERAL LAND | 25
proposed sale threatened a large section of land that was not only picturesque for the entire valley but also a vital water source for homes along the forest’s foot- hills.
“The neighborhood got ahold of me because they knew I’d worked logging and I’d worked for the Forest Service,” Hammer says, adding, “I didn’t know anything about the laws and regula- tions. I just knew what good logging and bad logging looked like.”
Hammer joined the fight and in 1984 he formally organized the Swan View Coalition as a nonprofit organization made up of concerned local residents. They hosted letter-writing parties to lobby support from the valley’s residents and Hammer attended every meeting held by forest managers. A year later, the group achieved a hallmark decision by successfully halting the Noisy Face tim- ber sale after documents surfaced that showed the Forest Service was deceiving the public over its intentions for meeting established quality standards.
It was a David vs. Goliath victory and propelled the Swan View Coalition to the local forefront of the environmental movement while riling up those in the timber business who saw it as a major blow to the industry. The decision also served to set Hammer on the new course he eventually followed.
“If the science gets ignored in the public debate, and especially in the po- litical process, that’s when fish and wild- life always come out on the bottom of the
Chip Weber, Flathead National Forest Supervisor, talks about land management. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
is what needs to be fixed. When we’re not harvesting the trees, it’s like a garden – if you don’t remove trees before they die, habitat deteriorates. Then it burns. Then you’re degrading your air quality. It’s also hurting the timber industry and it’s hurting your community. It’s hurt- ing the school system. It’s hurting every- body who relies on timber receipts.”
According to Altemus, there are over 200 million board feet of timber cur- rently held up in litigation in Montana, nearly twice as much as in 2012 but still below the recent high of 500 million in 2007.
Amid this ongoing tug of war it might be easy to assume Hammer would be on board with supporters who want to take federal lands away from the Forest Ser- vice.
Not so.
“On one hand, the federal govern- ment is the problem but on the other hand they have to be part of the solu- tion. The thing that’s absolutely certain is that if these federal lands were state controlled, let alone private, it would be way worse,” he says.
He points to the era in Montana’s early history when the Anaconda Cop- per Mining Company ran the state with a heavy hand. He believes selling off pub- lic lands that the state couldn’t manage would only harm the economy and elim- inate beloved resources.
“We all have our beefs with the fed-
See Environment PAGE 27
pile, because it’s people talking about what they want, and we all have our own selfish needs,” Hammer says.
At the same time, several people con- sider Hammer’s litigious methods as one of the fundamental examples of obstruc- tionism when it comes to public land management.
Altemus says environmental groups suing on a regular basis are only ham- pering local economies and inevitably harming the forests’ health.
Constant litigation can stall a project for years and cost millions in court fees, and Hammer’s group has become a post-
er-child catalyst, along with other orga- nizations based throughout the West, such as Defenders of Wildlife and The Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
Just this month, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen blocked a logging project in the Kootenai National Forest over concerns that roads built for har- vesting may harm a threatened popu- lation of grizzly bears. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued the Forest Ser- vice over the 36,600-acre Pilgrim proj- ect last year.
“The lawsuits are only increasing,” Altemus says. “This is the problem. This
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