Forest Service seeks comments on fire risk reduction project

The Swan Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest held an open house to answer questions and take comments from the public about the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Wild Cramer Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Project on Sept. 26 at the Swan Lake Ranger District in Bigfork.

The project area is located within the Island Unit, an aggregation of National Forest System lands entirely surrounded by private and state lands, approximately 10 miles south of Kalispell and two miles west of Flathead Lake.

The comment period on the Wild Cramer Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Project DEIS ends on Oct. 9. The 45-day comment period began with the publication of the notice of availability in the Federal Register on Aug. 24.

This is the biggest FNF project in the last 15 years according to project leader and planning team leader from the Hungry Horse, Glacier View, and Spotted Bear ranger districts, Michelle Draggoo. And, District Ranger for the Swan Lake district, Rich Kehr, estimates the entire project will take about a decade from inception to completion.

As of Sept. 26, only one comment has been submitted.

“It’s been pretty quiet so far,” Kehr said. “We tried to create alternatives that were meaningfully different and addressed the public comments.”

The Island Unit contains 46,876 acres of NFS lands administered by the Swan Lake Ranger District. The project area consists of 30,727 acres and includes Blacktail Mountain Ski Area and several drainages.

The Wild Cramer Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Project has the following primary purposes:

• Improve and/or maintain the general health, resiliency, and sustainability of forest stands and reduce the risk of insect epidemics and severe disease infestations within the project area.

• Reduce forest fuels build-up adjacent to public and private lands. This would help to provide a safer environment for the public and firefighters should a wildfire occur within the area and increase the probability of stopping wildfires on NFS lands before they burn onto private lands.

• Provide wood products for local communities and to the local timber industry, contributing to short-term timber supply and providing for long-term sustainability of timber on NFS lands.

A secondary purpose would benefit public recreation by addressing forest health issues within the Blacktail Mountain Ski Area permit boundary.

The DEIS includes a no-action alternative, Alternative 1, and four action alternatives. The action alternatives evaluate the potential effects of varying degrees of tree harvesting, thinning, prescribed burning, and hazardous fuels reduction activities.

“We looked at the issues and what was the meat of the issues and developed the alternatives for them,” Draggoo said. “Alternative 2 is the proposal taken from the public, and then we developed (Alternatives) 3, 4, and 5 based on public comment and internal comment from specialists.”

Alternative 3 was developed to address issues of wildlife security and big game winter range thermal/snow intercept cover.

Alternative 4 addresses fragmentation and connectivity of old forest habitat and Alternative 5 addresses water quality and quantity.

There are some similarities between alternatives 2-5, and each alternative includes a 22-acre special cut in the ski area.

“Commercial harvest and regeneration harvest is where the big difference is,” Draggoo said.

Alternatives 2 and 5 both call for 128 acres of noncommercial thinning, 3,890 acres of sapling thinning, and 228 acres of prescribed burning. Alternatives 2 and 3 both call for 152 acres of sanitation harvest.

Alternative 2 has 3,538 acres of regeneration tree harvest and 1,188 acres of commercial thinning harvest.

Alternative 3 has 2,055 acres of regeneration tree harvest, 370 acres of commercial thinning harvest, and 52 acres of noncommercial thinning.

Alternative 4 is the most different of the group with 2,338 acres of regeneration tree harvest, 474 acres of commercial thinning, 83 acres of noncommercial thinning, 129 acres of sanitation harvest, 3,824 of sapling harvest, and 170 acres of prescribed burning.

Alternative 5 has 2,711 acres of regeneration tree harvest, 1,107 acres of commercial thinning, and 152 acres of sanitation harvest.

“It’s not a one-size fits all deal,” Kehr said.

“And, each acre is different too,” added James Barnett, fire management specialist with the Hungry Horse district, as they explained how each acre within the project area will be dealt with based on what is in that area.

With the exception of the no-action Alternative 1, each alternative also calls for road construction. Specified road construction for Alternative 2 is 13.1 miles, Alternative 3 is 7.9 miles, Alternative 4 is 9.6 miles, and Alternative 5 is 4.8 miles on existing templates. Alternatives 2-5 also call for temporary road construction, 14.4 miles for Alternative 2, 5.5 miles for Alternative 3, 9.7 miles for Alternative 4, and 12.3 miles for Alternative 5.

Copies of the DEIS are available at the Swan Lake Ranger District office in Bigfork, at the Supervisor’s Office in Kalispell, or at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/flat head/projects.

For more information, contact Michelle Draggoo, project leader, at 387-3827.