Conservation groups discover big landslide

The Swan View Coalition and Friends of the Wild Swan recently reported their discovery of a large landslide in the Flathead National Forest that fell into Sullivan Creek.

Sullivan Creek drains into Quintonkin Creek, which drains into the Hungry Horse Reservoir on the east side of the Swan Range.

The local conservation groups, which reported their findings to state and federal agencies in a July 21 letter, claim a logging road above the creek contributed to the landslide and allege federal laws were violated when water quality and critical habitat for threatened bull trout was damaged.

The groups believe the landslide occurred sometime since July 2013 and blame poor design and maintenance of logging road ditches and culverts for the slide.

“This is a road built on an unstable hillside to begin with,” Swan View Coalition chairman Keith Hammer said. “Then the Forest Service failed to install enough culverts to drain the ditch, causing runoff to instead perk beneath the road and lubricate this landslide. It was a ticking time bomb.”

Hammer said written comments he submitted for the Flathead National Forest’s draft Travel Analysis Report provide evidence that more roads should be decommissioned and not simply demoted to basic custodial care.

“The Flathead National Forest is lying when it says it can simply demote most of its roads to minimal maintenance and that those roads can be safely stored,” Hammer said. “The Flathead and other national forests have determined roads need to be decommissioned and problem areas fixed before they can be safely stored for any length of time.”

Hammer said the Sullivan Creek landslide “is just one more example of what goes horribly wrong with logging roads.”

Friends of the Wild Swan program director Arlene Montgomery said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requires annual monitoring and maintenance of culverts and ditches on closed forest roads to protect bull trout.

“If they cannot do this, then the road should be made hydrologically secure so it doesn’t pose a threat to fish or water quality,” she said. “Bull trout need cold, clean water to survive and reproduce, and Sullivan Creek is the best bull trout spawning stream in the South Fork of the Flathead outside of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. These roads need to be decommissioned, not simply gated shut and ignored.”

In their July 21 letter, the two groups cite a 1995 Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks survey that found 52 partially plugged or undermined culverts and 13 blown-out culverts in bull trout streams in the South Fork drainage.

“The Forest Service will forever downplay the great liability these roads are to the American taxpayer and the environment,” Hammer said. “The risks are much higher than the benefits on most of these old remote logging roads.”

“It’s much better to make the investment in removing these roads rather than suffer the consequences,” Montgomery said. “This landslide is an unnecessary setback for water quality and native fish habitat.”