Forest plan scrutinized at open house

The examination is under way.

People milled about the room, slowly scrutinizing the oversized maps on the wall that represent the Flathead National Forest's long-range forest-plan proposal.

"People seem to be moving to their particular areas of interest," said Flathead Supervisor Cathy Barbouletos at the forest's first forest-plan open house Monday at the WestCoast Kalispell Center Hotel. "It's either an issue, or a place that they are usually interested in."

The maps are the meat of a plan that is based largely on strategic goals for different parts of the forest. Some describe it as "zoning" with "desired conditions" on the landscape. It's a big difference from the far more descriptive and detailed forest plans that were enacted across the country in the mid-1980s. Those plans entailed voluminous environmental-impact statements that attempted to predict the effects of forest-plan implementation.

Under rules adopted by the Forest Service last year, the new plans are slimmer and simpler, and they are being developed on a far more expeditious schedule.

"I think there's a positive reaction," Barbouletos said of the new approach. "People like the fact that we're not going to take a decade to create the plan, and I think that people like that it's only a half-inch thick rather than a foot thick."

The Flathead forest-plan proposal was developed along with proposals for the Bitterroot and Lolo national forests by a Missoula-based team led by Chuck Sperry, who was on hand for the open house in Kalispell.

Sperry said opinions are mixed about the new approach.

"There are people who have their concerns about the new rules, but generally people like that it's shorter and more understandable," he said.

When developing forest plans 20 years ago, Sperry said, the Forest Service "made every mistake in the book, but we learned a lot."

Joel Vignere, a Flathead resident and wilderness advocate, said the forest's proposed plan is vague.

"It's very short on specifics," he said. "It's too general. You can't hold anybody's feet to the fire if they haven't said anything."

Richard Kuhl, a longtime Montana Wilderness Association member who helped develop the Flathead's 1986 plan, said the new approach "probably can't be any worse" than the approach used 20 years ago.

But he cautioned that forest plans are measured by how they are implemented. "We'll know 10 years from now how good this one is," he said.

Fred Hodgeboom, president of Montanans for Multiple Use, was on the Flathead forest team that developed the 1986 plan. He says the new rules clearly provide the Forest Service with "more flexibility, which can be good or bad."

The proposed plan "is not nearly as rigorous as far as the requirements, and of course it's not going to require the preparation of a huge environmental impact statement," he said. "Environmental impacts, good or bad, are the result of actual things that happen on the ground."

Each project that aims to implement the forest plan will require environmental assessments or impact statements, he said.

What the plan doesn't do, he said, is analyze the impacts of "doing nothing."

That is a major concern for Montanans for Multiple Use, Hodgeboom said.

"I think there is great concern in the public for the Forest Service not addressing the impacts of doing nothing in the forest," he said. "There are lots of folks, including myself, who feel they aren't doing enough."

Although the plan does map out 328,328 acres that are considered "suitable for timber production" and an additional 568,000 acres in which timber harvest is possible, it still dramatically reduces the amount of timber harvest that was allowed by the 1986 plan.

Forest officials are projecting, based on budget considerations, that about 25 million board feet will be harvested annually, compared with a ceiling of about 50 million board feet that currently is "allowable" but never has been reached under the current forest plan.

Hodgeboom said the plan should be projecting volumes based on desired conditions rather than budget "assumptions."

Vignere and Kuhl generally are optimistic that the Flathead proposal includes 141,243 acres of "recommended wilderness," a substantial increase over the current plan's 98,080 acres. Most of the additional acreage is from the inclusion of about 60,000 acres in the North Fork Flathead drainage, around Thompson-Seton and Tuchuck mountains. The rest is accounted for with proposed expansions around the Bob Marshall, Spotted Bear and Great Bear wilderness areas.

"I'm encouraged with any additions of wilderness," Vignere said.

"I'm not so pleased," countered Hodgeboom. "I think there may be some room for additions to the wilderness system, but certainly what the Flathead is recommending is way beyond what is needed."

Wilderness accounts for about half the Flathead's land base, and wilderness is used by only a fraction of national-forest visitors, Hodgeboom said.

"We think the greater need is in the multiple-use direction," he said.

Hodgeboom also contends that the Forest Service is overstepping its bounds by implementing wilderness-management provisions as part of "recommended" wilderness areas, when only Congress can designate wilderness and the rules that come with that designation.

"We think de facto wilderness is illegal," he said. "It's illegal for bureaucrats to designate wilderness."

Public comments on the Flathead's proposed plan will be taken until the end of July. Comments will be considered in developing a final plan that could be approved by the end of the year.

Open house tonight in Eureka

The Kootenai National Forest will hold an open house on its proposed long-term management plan today in Eureka.

The meeting will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at Lincoln County High School.

More open houses will be held about the Kootenai and Flathead national forests through June. Public comment periods on the proposed plans will close at the end of July. More information about the plans and submitting public comments is available on the Internet at:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/kootenai/

http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/flathead/

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