Timber work to proceed despite appeal

A Forest Service timber salvage project in the area burned by the 2003 Crazy Horse Fire has been appealed by two environmental groups.

But logging is expected to begin well before the appeal from the Missoula-based Ecology Center and Alliance for the Wild Rockies is decided.

The salvage project was granted a special exemption that allowed work to proceed during an appeal period because of the "emergency" need to salvage burned trees before they lose commercial value.

Swan Lake District Ranger Steve Brady said logging on the project area, located south of Condon in the Swan Valley, could get under way as early as next week. The 4.8 million-board-foot sale was awarded to Pyramid Lumber of Seeley Lake in November.

The appeal contends, in part, that the Forest Service is wrongly removing fire-damaged trees that might survive, based on "unproven, unreliable" methods of predicting tree mortality.

Brady countered that the forest is using a conservative method of predicting tree mortality, based on observations of tree survival following the 2001 Moose Fire in the North Fork Flathead.

"They found that if anything, more trees died than what the standards predicted," he said.

The groups also say the Forest Service has failed to adequately analyze impacts on old growth forest habitat and species that depend on that habitat.

But Brady says the appeal seems to consider areas within the fire perimeter to be old growth, even though they were mostly leveled by the fire.

"We don't think we're dealing with old growth," he said. "In most places, the fire has changed those conditions."

And project planners have gone to great lengths, he said, in retaining snags and downed woody material for wildlife purposes, even though the fire burned through 5,000 acres in the Mission Mountain Wilderness and considerable acreage outside wilderness where there will be no timber salvage.

With that in mind, he said, there will be considerable "snag retention" for wildlife in and around the burned area.

The appeal also raises once again an issue that has been brought up with other forest management projects across the country - that the Forest Service is allegedly failing to account for impacts to wildlife "indicator" species because the agency has failed to adequately monitor the status of those species, which include black-backed woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers, pine martens and northern goshawks.

"They're trying to say that … we have to have actual population data for each of the species and that maintenance of adequate habitat surveys for those species isn't enough," Brady said. "Getting adequate surveys for many of these species would be extremely difficult."

The appeal also contends that the agency failed to adequately assess roadless areas, impacts on water quality and fisheries habitat, and cumulative effects of past management in the burned area and on surrounding lands.

Brady disputes those claims.

The appeal will be decided by an appeals officer at regional forest headquarters in Missoula.

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