Swan forest project yields early opposition

As proposed, the project would thin timber, construct 60 miles of new roads, implement controlled burns, build beaver-like structures in some streams, plant fire-resistant native tree species, reduce potential wildfire fuels and implement other measures across about 70,000 acres in the Swan Valley.

On Tuesday, the Swan Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest announced the Mid-Swan Landscape Restoration and Wildland Urban Interface Project. As envisioned it would stretch from south of Swan Lake down to the community of Condon.

The agency cited the negative landscape impacts of decades of fire suppression, the ongoing and anticipated ecosystem effects of climate change and the threats of severe wildfire as key factors driving the proposal.

As envisioned, the project would yield somewhere between 40 million and 60 million board feet of timber.

Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition, scoffed at the U.S. Forest Service’s characterization of the project.

“Even at a glance, this huge project does not qualify as landscape restoration,” Hammer said. “It is instead a big logging project requiring even more logging roads be built in the already over-roaded Swan Valley.”

He noted, too, that the Forest Service would need to suspend two Forest Plan standards related to the management of Canada lynx, a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, for the project to proceed.

The agency’s description of the Mid-Swan undertaking acknowledges there may be reductions in lynx habitat quality in the short-term, described as 10 to 20 years, “in order to promote the long-term development of high-quality habitat.”

The Forest Service said the Mid-Swan project was developed in concert with the Southwestern Crown Collaborative, a volunteer organization that began meeting regularly in July 2009.

According to its website, the Southwestern Crown Collaborative “brings together residents, interested citizens, business enterprises and conservation organizations to consider creative solutions in the management of National Forests in the Blackfoot, Clearwater and Swan River valleys.”

The group has been involved with helping to develop a regional forest strategy tied to the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, which is intended to improve forest conditions and help protect communities from wildfires.

The Forest Service’s “scoping document” released this week describes the Mid-Swan as a diverse landscape that “provides important habitat for grizzly bear, black bear, elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain lion, Canada lynx, gray wolf, wolverine, water howellia, cutthroat trout and bull trout, among other species.”

Meanwhile, the Forest Service is soliciting comments about the scoping document for the Mid-Swan Landscape Restoration and Wildland Urban Interface Project as the agency moves toward preparing a draft environmental impact statement.

The current estimated timeline could yield project implementation in 2020.

A public meeting about the project will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8 at the Swan Valley Community Hall in Condon.

The scoping document can be found at: www.fs.usda.gov/projects/flathead/landmanagement/projects

Reporter Duncan Adams may be reached at dadams@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4407.