Greetings, Beacon Nation! If you’ve been trying to make sense of the U.S. Forest Service’s reorganization plan, which includes shuttering nine regional offices and relocating the federal agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, you’re not alone; since announcing the sweeping restructuring initiative earlier this month, the agency added a section to its website titled, “Setting the Record Straight on the Forest Service’s Reorganization.”

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins framed the overhaul as signaling “a structural reset and a commonsense approach to improve mission delivery,” which, for an agency whose land and operational challenges are largely concentrated in the West, makes sense.

But since announcing the reorganization on March 31, critics of the move say it raises more questions than it answers and upends a sprawling agency — the Forest Service controls 154 national forests and 29 national grasslands, amounting to 193 million acres — ahead of a high-risk wildland fire season.

Under the new plan, the Forest Service will: move its headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City; eliminate its regional structure, closing nine regional offices, including the Northern Region office in Missoula; replace them with 15 state-level offices, including a new Montana office in Helena; and close 57 of 77 (74%) of research and development facilities nationwide.

“These changes go beyond organizational charts — they threaten the agency’s ability to manage America’s forests at all,” according to a letter written by Hillary Eisen, federal policy director for Wild Montana, to the state’s four congressional delegates. “Taken together with other actions, such as proposed rollbacks to the 2001 Roadless Rule, efforts to weaken NEPA, and Congress’s recent decision to nullify agency land-use plans via the Congressional Review Act, this reorganization is part of a disturbing trend to dismantle the systems that protect our public lands and forests, raising serious concerns about their future.”

I’m Tristan Scott, encouraging you to stick around to find out what changes the reorganization initiative could bring to northwest Montana.

Tucked away on the Flathead National Forest, the Coram Experimental Forest is a 7,460-acre outdoor research laboratory near Hungry Horse. For nearly a century, the forest has been used by scientists researching the western larch forests flanking Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, as well as for education and conservation, and by hikers, hunters, horseback riders, and huckleberry pickers. Featuring meadows and century-old trees, Coram Experimental Forest is one of more than 80 U.S. Forest Service sites that are set aside for research.

Under the Forest Service’s reorganization plan, however, the agency has proposed closing the Coram Experimental Forest research headquarters located on the campus of the Hungry Horse Ranger District, which is about 3 miles west of the forest. The research facilities include two weather stations and two flumes for measuring streamflow. The headquarters consist of two houses with offices and sleeping quarters. These buildings, which were built in the late 1940s by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, are available for use by researchers and research collaborators.

According to the Forest Service’s “Setting the Record Straight” web page, it’s a “myth” that the agency is closing experimental forests and ranges.

“The Forest service is not shutting down any of its experimental forests and ranges. They are important assets to the Forest Service and the broader science community, and research on them will continue,” according to the page. “We have proposed to close select facilities at some experimental forests, often facilities that are under-utilized or vacant. The closure of facilities on experimental forests will not affect the ability to conduct research at these locations.”

According to a Flathead National Forest spokesperson, the two “bunk houses” function as sleeping quarters for Rocky Mountain Research Station staff and collaborators from Missoula. They do not accommodate full-time employees. Although the houses are being evaluated for closure, shuttering the facility would not include any job losses or layoffs. The spokesperson said the Flathead National Forest hopes to keep the bunk houses, which could be used for employee housing.

Eisen said losing research programs and infrastructure supporting experimental forests would compromise the agency’s mission of sustainable forest management.

“Experimental forests, such as the 7,500-acre Coram Experimental Forest on the Flathead, established in 1933 to study western larch regeneration and management, are crucial to understanding and managing ecologically and commercially significant species,” she wrote in the letter to Montana’s federal delegates. “Losing these research programs of their long-term datasets would severely undermine forestry science and management in western Montana.”

Here’s the rest of the Daily Roundup.