Flathead releases slimmed-down forest plan

The Flathead National Forest on Monday rolled out a proposed forest-plan revision that closely follows last year's draft recommendations for wilderness, timber harvest and other strategic management goals.

The Flathead plan proposes 141,243 acres of wilderness, 328,328 acres for timber production and an additional 568,559 acres where timber harvest could occur on the 2.3 million-acre forest.

The Flathead, Bitterroot and Lolo national forests jointly issued their forest plan proposals, triggering a 90-day public comment period that will involve two open houses in the Flathead Valley.

The forests are on schedule to produce new long-term forest management plans by the end of the year - plans that will be significantly different from current forest plans developed in the mid-1980s.

The plans are being developed with new rules adopted by the Forest Service last year that put an emphasis on strategic rather than tactical management prescriptions.

"With the new regulations, the new plans will be shorter and less prescriptive than the existing plans," Flathead Forest Supervisor Cathy Barbouletos said.

The Flathead's 153-page proposal is far slimmer than the 1986 forest plan. That voluminous document included 17 alternatives and took years to develop.

The current plan, in fact, is thinner than any of the 24 forest plan amendments that have been adopted by the Flathead since 1986.

Rob Carlin, the Flathead's lead planner, said the biggest difference is that the proposed plan does not include the environmental impact statement that was required to assess landscape effects of all forest plans adopted in the mid-1980s.

That fundamental change is the result of the Forest Service determining - as a result of court decisions - that environmental reviews are required at the project level rather than planning level.

"This doesn't authorize the agency to go out and do any kind of ground-disturbing activity," said Joe Krueger, the Flathead's environmental compliance specialist.

The new plans, Carlin said, provide strategic direction similar to local government zoning with an emphasis on "desired conditions" and "suitability of areas" for different management objectives.

Rather than prescribing timber volume targets, for instance, the new planning proposal defines areas where timber production is the primary management goal.

The Flathead proposal of 141,243 acres of recommended wilderness is a substantial increase over the current plan's recommendation for 98,080 acres. Most of the additional acreage is from about 60,000 acres in the North Fork Flathead drainage, in the Thompson-Seton and Tuchuck Mountain areas.

The Flathead proposal maps out 328,328 acres that are considered "suitable for timber production." These are areas that would be actively managed to produce commercial timber products. That's a substantial reduction from the 670,000 acres defined as the suitable timber base in the current forest plan.

But the new definition does not reflect all areas where timber harvest could occur. An additional 568,559 acres would be "suitable for timber harvest for other purposes."

Those areas would be managed so trees could be harvested to achieve multiple-use objectives, such as supporting wildlife habitat, reducing fire hazards or improving scenic vistas.

The Flathead Forest projects that lands for "timber production" would yield timber volumes ranging from 186 million to 227 million board-feet of timber per decade. And lands suitable for "timber harvest" would yield 52 million to 64 million board feet per decade.

Another major difference between the current and proposed plans is the absence of travel management standards. Amendment 19 to the current forest plan has been one of the most complicated and contentious aspects of Flathead Forest management. The 1995 amendment established road density standards to improve grizzly bear habitat security.

Those standards are not directly part of the forest plan proposal, but they still will be applicable on the Flathead Forest because of the Endangered Species Act and management direction from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Carlin said. Timber sales and other projects still will go through extensive environmental reviews with consideration of the current road density standards.

But as new science is developed regarding grizzly bears or other natural resources, the new forest plan can be more easily revised to change management direction on the forest.

Road management will be more thoroughly defined through a separate process that will begin once forest plan revision is complete.

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