'Social timber sale' project back on track

A Foothill Road timber sale has achieved renewed priority for the state.

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is moving forward with a delayed logging project in the midst of the Foothill Road neighborhood.

Because the state school trust lands involved are so close to homes, the Foothills Timber Sale attracted considerable interest when it was first introduced in the summer of 2001.

"We do have quite a few neighbors," said project leader Beverly O'Brien. "The mailing list for this particular project is about 490, and most of those are adjacent landowners."

O'Brien described it as "kind of a social timber sale" with public input ranging from encouraging the state to pursue aggressive logging on down to opposing the project outright.

The state has developed two alternative approaches for a project that would recover 8 million to 12 million board feet of timber from about 1,500 acres of trust lands that are scattered in checkerboard fashion along Foothill Road in the East Valley.

The state is seeking another round of public input - with a May 6 deadline - that will be used to develop a draft environmental impact statement scheduled for release in June.

Then, there will be another round of public comment, followed by a final environmental impact statement. State officials hope for logging to get under way by summer of 2006.

Greg Poncin, Kalispell unit manager for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, maintains that state timber stands in the foothills area are long overdue for some degree of management. The state's main goal is to generate revenue for school trust funds, and improve the timber productivity of stands that are currently blighted with beetle kill and excessive mortality, he said.

As a byproduct, Poncin said, the project is planned to reduce fire fuel densities in a populated area of Flathead County that has been identified as having a high fire danger.

The project's unusual delay was the result of being relegated to a lower priority behind several other projects within the Kalispell unit and because of demands that resulted from busy fire seasons over the last few years, Poncin said.

But now it is considered a high-priority project.

"That area out there represents about 10 percent of our timber base (within the Kalispell unit) and it is arguably our best timber growing site," he said.

Drought over the last six years has exacerbated a beetle infestation in the area that has left some stands in extremely poor condition.

In the worst areas, there is 15,000 board feet of wood material per acre, with only 2,000 board feet considered marketable for saw log use, Poncin said. The rest is good for pulp material at best.

Comments on the proposed project should be sent by May 6 to Beverly O'Brien, DNRC Kalispell Unit, 2250 U.S. 93 N., Kalispell MT 59901.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com