Agency OKs Swan Valley timber plan

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has approved a forest management project in the Swan Valley that will yield an estimated 21.5 million board-feet of timber over three years.

The White Porcupine project will involve multiple timber sales on 1,519 acres on the west side of the Swan River State Forest, with harvesting targeted at old-growth timber stands on 1,146 acres.

Approved by State Forester Dan Roberson last week, the project will go before the state Land Board on Feb. 17, with the board likely to hear some opposition.

"Liquidating scarce old-growth wildlife habitat is not environmentally sound," said Arlene Montgomery, conservation program director with Friends of the Wild Swan. "Liquidating any of the school trust assets when timber prices are at the lowest levels in decades is not fiscally sound."

But Roberson said that besides generating revenue, the project is aimed at addressing severe insect and disease problems in the targeted stands.

"Those stands are liquidating themselves and we are trying to regenerate them for the future and recover value," Roberson said. "We are dealing with forest insect and disease issues that are out there and not waiting."

While wood-product prices are low, Roberson refutes speculation that the state will get rock-bottom prices when it offers the timber to bidders.

"You never know until the bids come in," he said.

The project will account for a little more than 13 percent of the DNRC's harvest over the next three years, under a 'sustained yield" target that requires minimum harvests from school trust forest lands.

The project also is being propelled by a grizzly bear conservation agreement that requires forest management activity in the Swan Valley to be carried out on a rotating basis. The White Porcupine project area is open for timber harvesting over the next few years.

Roberson said the project is justified for other reasons.

"In these hard economic times, we need to pay attention to jobs that are needed and maintaining our forest products infrastructure," Roberson said. "And we also need cash flow for the state. We need to bring in money that supports our infrastructure."

Montgomery said the project will have impacts on wildlife habitat. Logging will render 1,200 acres unsuitable for lynx denning and foraging for decades and it will reduce hiding cover for grizzly bears, she said.

It will involve construction of 14 new miles of forest roads that will compound sedimentation from an existing road network, Montgomery said, to the detriment of spawning habitat for threatened bull trout.

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