Plan would open thousands of burned acres to harvest
The Flathead National Forest has released its final plan for managing areas burned during the 2003 fires in the North Fork drainage, including this area of the Robert Fire. Chris Jordan/Daily Inter Lake
The Flathead National Forest has unveiled its final plan for managing areas burned by the Robert and Wedge Canyon fires in summer 2003.
A two-volume Environmental Impact Statement was released this week, outlining several alternative management approaches for a total of 34,650 acres of national forest lands that were burned in the North Fork Flathead drainage.
The forest's "proposed action" calls for salvage logging on 4,337 acres and tree planting on 3,000 acres. It also calls for decommissioning 15 miles of road and closing five miles of road that are currently open seasonally or year-round to approach forest plan standards that are intended to improve grizzly bear habitat security.
The proposed road management plans fall short of meeting those standards, so forest officials also are proposing site-specific amendments to the Flathead Forest Plan.
Not meeting the forest plan standards raises prospects for appeals or litigation from groups that have a record of pressing the forest to meet the road standards.
And those who oppose more road closures on the forest also may pursue appeals or litigation.
Flathead Forest Supervisor Cathy Barbouletos will officially approve one of the alternatives - presumably the proposed action - in early December.
The regional forester recently granted the Flathead Forest a special exemption that allows logging to begin immediately, even during a 105-day appeal period that gets under way once Barbouletos signs off on the project.
The proposed action calls for most salvage logging to be carried out with helicopters removing the logs from 913 acres in the Robert Fire area and 975 acres in the Wedge Canyon Fire area.
On the Robert Fire, cable yarding systems would be used on 400 acres and logs would be removed by tractor skidders on 624 acres. On the Wedge Canyon Fire, tractor skidders would be used on 1,206 acres while cable yarding systems would be used on 219 acres.
Most logging must be carried out during winter when snow cover can prevent soil damage.
Forest officials are estimating that salvage logging could yield up to 11.3 million board feet from the Robert Fire area and 15.5 million board feet from the Wedge Canyon burned area.
But some local foresters have raised concerns about whether actual volumes will measure up to the estimates because burned timber can rapidly deteriorate.
Flathead forest officials contend the proposed action reflects public input gathered from collaborative meetings held last February. That process, mandated by special legislation from Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., turned out to be controversial among many of the 88 people who participated.
Because the process required 100 percent agreement on recommendations to the forest, any one person could effectively veto recommendations made by the majority of participants.
Members of Montanans for Multiple Use in particular were unhappy with the process.
The final EIS for the Robert-Wedge Post Fire Project is available at the Flathead National Forest Supervisors Office or on the Internet at: