Comment period opens on Kootenai proposal

The Kootenai National Forest is accepting public comments on an “adaptive management” proposal examining 400,000 acres for potential forest health treatment.

The Federal Register published the forest’s notice of intent Tuesday, kicking off the scoping and 30-day public comment period for the Forest-Wide Young Growth Vegetation Management Project.

Planning and Resources Officer Quinn Carver said the proposal will substantially whittle down the 400,000 acres by the end of the process, after taking into effect potential impacts to threatened and endangered species, cultural sites and other conditions.

“As long as it meets whatever screens we develop, we’ll be able to go in and treat,” Carver said. “It’s kind of like setting up the standards for effects on what you would treat, and then applying those standards to the landscape if it fits.”

Once the screens, or parcels of treatable forest with certain conditions attached, are approved, the forest would be able to award contracts for harvest and treatment projects without necessarily embarking on the full environmental assessment process for each one.

Treatments would include pre-commercial and commercial harvest, thinning and prescribed burns to reduce susceptibility to insects and disease, improve wildlife habitat and reduce fire risks. All of the proposed treatment area is second-growth forest that has been harvested within the past 50 to 60 years, said Carver. No new roads are being proposed.

The proposal is being funded, in part, by a $100,000 grant from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation as part of Gov. Steve Bullock’s “Forest in Focus” initiative, intended to accelerate priority projects on Forest Service Land.

After the end of the comment period, Kootenai Forest will use information from the scoping process and public comments to narrow down the 400,000 acres for their initial proposal, and publish a draft environmental impact statement. Carver said he expects the process to wrap up by the end of 2016.

Carver said he hopes the project will allow officials to keep up with the ever-changing conditions in the 2.2 million-acre forest.

“For thinning we get about 1,200 acres per year, and in a normal year harvest about three to four thousand acres per year,” he said. “It’s pretty easy to see that we would fall behind on thinning those stands.”

For more information or to view the proposal, visit fs.usda.gov/projects/kootenai/landmanagement/projects.

Comments can be mailed or hand-delivered to: Chris Savage, Forest Supervisor, Kootenai National Forest, 31374 U.S. 2, Libby, MT 59923, ATTN: Forest-Wide Young Growth Project; or emailed to comments-northern-kootenai@fs.fed.us.

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.