Log the LeBeau

The LeBeau Research Natural Area — what a cruel joke to pull on the residents of Flathead and Lincoln counties.

The LeBeau RNA is in the Upper Stillwater Lake area of the Flathead National Forest, and it butts up against the Kootenai National Forest. It measures about 5,000 acres.

Over the years, the Forest Service has shut down just about all of the roads going anywhere close to the LeBeau RNA boundaries.

On the Martin Creek side, a gated road, number 910A, goes in to a good camping and fishing area. On the edge of the RNA but not in the RNA is a Forest Service gravel pit.

If you can drive up to it this summer, do so on Forest Road 2815. Look to the north and look at all of the dead and dying Douglas fir, 24-to-48-inch diameter on the stump.

The gravel pit would make a good spot for helicopter logging.

Change the LeBeau area back to what it was before it was made into an RNA. Helicopter log the green fir, sell it cheap.

With all the road closures, it has changed the LeBeau RNA into a 10,000-acre roadless area. If you cannot use a road, it is roadless, just a wide trail.

When I look at the 1985 Forest Plan map, I see that the LeBeau area is just a drop in the bucket, and I'm guessing that if the other management areas on this map are even half of what the LeBeau area has closed off, we have way too much roadless land already.

If sections 32 and 33 in the RNA were logged, it might provide winter range.

Ted Larsen

Olney