Coming to loggerheads: Tour participants are worlds apart in views

As a lone chain saw whined in the distance, Flathead National Forest officials on Tuesday explained and at times defended salvage logging that's under way in burned areas west of Hungry Horse Reservoir.

There was little logging activity close at hand for about 50 people who toured the Beta fire salvage area. Most of the work was being carried out 2,000 feet higher near ridgetops that burned the hottest during the 2003 fire season.

But for a while, a twin-rotor helicopter dropped in for a close-up demonstration of how logs are quickly removed from the forest floor and hauled to nearby yarding areas.

Participants represented an array of interests, including several groups that have filed administrative appeals objecting to the project for numerous reasons.

There were 16 people from Missoula, including representatives of the Native Forest Network and University of Montana students, along with foresters and members of Montanans for Multiple Use.

Views on salvage logging were diametrically opposed. Road management, a much larger and legally messy issue for the Forest Service, was not even discussed during the tour.

Cameron Naficy, a field representative for the Native Forest Network, contends that "the Flathead Forest has an extremely aggressive policy toward salvage logging."

Naficy said that aggressiveness is reflected in the forest's track record of pursuing timber salvage in every area where there has been forest fires in recent years.

But others on the tour said the Flathead Forest has been anything but aggressive.

"Overall, it's a huge disappointment," said Montanans for Multiple Use Member Dave Skinner, who contends the Forest Service should be removing far more salvage timber from burned areas.

The Native Forest Network contends on its Web site that the Flathead Forest is degrading wildlife habitat through salvage logging.

"Post-fire logging such as the Flathead National Forest has proposed in the burned forests of 2003 turns these forests into a patchwork of clearcuts with heavily damaged soils, and new roads that fragment grizzly bear habitat and feed sediment into clear, fish inhabited streams," the group's Web site states.

On the tour, however, forest officials pointed to cutting units where tree retention is 10-15 trees per acre, where the surviving larch overstory is being left standing, and nearby areas where thick stands of burned trees are not being touched.

Forest Service officials say ground-disturbing activities have been minimized.

Helicopter logging accounts for 77 percent of the 18 million-board-foot Beta timber salvage sale, said Gordy Sanders, resources manager for Pyramid Lumber Co., the Seeley Lake mill that purchased the sale.

All tractor removal of logs must be carried in the winter, Sanders said.

The West Side Reservoir post-fire project involves construction of only three miles of temporary road, along with directions to render 49 miles of forest roads unusable by motorized vehicles, year-round closures on 18 miles and seasonal closures on 12 miles of road that are currently open.

Those measures have drawn the ire of Montanans for Multiple Use, but they still fall short of forest plan standards aimed at improving grizzly bear habitat security.

One issue for the Native Forest Network and other environmental groups is whether the Forest Service is "salvage logging" trees that would actually survive effects of the fire. The groups are challenging the Flathead Forest's "mortality guidelines."

But Joe Krueger, the Flathead Forest's environmental coordinator, said he is confident in the standards that are being used.

Since the beginning of three major post-fire projects on the Flathead, forest officials have said their task is to produce work that represents a degree of balance between such divergent views.

"We are restoring national forest lands to better health through this project," Krueger said.

But Krueger is not referring to timber salvage alone, which was mainly intended to produce wood products for socio-economic benefits. Proceeds from timber salvage will be used to carry out an array of restoration projects, including the road reclamation and road closures. About 700 acres within west-side salvage areas will be replanted, and conditions for forest regeneration will be optimized.

So far, timber salvage operations are proceeding as expected, despite the significant expense of helicopter logging, Sanders said.

"With any salvage sale, there's a higher degree of risk and uncertainty" because burned wood deteriorates in value, Sanders said. "In this case, we looked at the whole area very closely, and it's developing saw logs and house logs that are pretty much matching our expectations for quality and grade."

Sanders noted that logs being hauled off the Beta sale are not being delivered to Pyramid Lumber alone.

"There's probably a dozen different family owned mills as well as a couple of large companies that benefit from our activities on the Beta sale," he said. "The house logs are basically being distributed all over western Montana.

"We've delivered a fair amount of logs to Stoltze and a few to Plum Creek," he said.

Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. of Columbia Falls on Monday purchased the North Blackfoot sale, which is estimated to involve 6.7 million board feet.

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