Stakeholders weigh in on Forest Plan
The Flathead National Forest recently provided a first look at its revised Forest Plan. The “proposed action” is intended to gauge public reaction and take previous public comments into account.
While most stakeholders say it’s a good start, they’d also like to see some significant changes in the Forest Plan.
“I think they did a pretty good job of getting to a starting point,” said Paul McKenzie, lands and resource manager for F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. in Columbia Falls.
Stoltze is most concerned about timber output in the plan, which calls for 28.3 million board feet of sawlogs per year. But that number is budget-constrained, McKenzie noted — if the Forest Service has more funding, the volume could go higher.
What McKenzie doesn’t want to see is 28.3 million set as the final harvest number. If that happens, the Forest couldn’t go over it without being litigated.
The more significant figure is the long-term sustained yield, he said. That figure, which isn’t in the proposed action, ultimately will decide what the Forest can sell if it isn’t constrained by its budget.
Tom Ray, Plum Creek’s vice president of northwest resources and manufacturing, had similar sentiments.
“We think there’s room for that number (28.3 million) to be moved up,” Ray said.
According to Plum Creek’s calculations, Ray said, a biologically sustainable yield is closer to 48 million board feet per year. He said Plum Creek would continue to work with Montana’s congressional delegation to bolster the Forest Service budget.
The proposed action considers about 637,000 acres of the Flathead Forest as suitable timber base, down from the 707,000 acres in the 1986 plan.
As for wilderness, the plan has good and bad points, said Amy Robinson, Northwest Montana field director for the Montana Wilderness Association.
The proposed action calls for nearly 80,000 acres of new wilderness in the North Fork but leaves out several areas MWA wanted added to the Mission Mountain Wilderness and MWA’s recommendation for wilderness in the Bunker Creek drainage.
“I think we can do better,” Robinson said.
Bunker Creek, in MWA’s view, is a good wilderness candidate. Located at the end of a 60-mile long road that sees few people, the area is adjacent to the Bob Marshall Wilderness and provides important elk, grizzly and other wildlife habitat.
The proposed action, however, gave it a backcountry non-motorized designation, which allows for mountain bike use but not motorcycles.
“I worry about the rate in which we lose opportunities for wilderness,” she said.
Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition, said he was disappointed in the plan.
“The deeper we dig into it, the worse it looks,” he said.
The environmental group would like to see more roads closed for grizzly bear security. Hammer also noted a softening of language in the plan concerning bears and other management actions — using words like “shall” instead of “may” or “could.”
“It throws Amendment 19 out the window,” he said, citing the rule for road density in the Flathead Forest.
Michael Jamison, of the Whitefish Range Partnership, said the proposed action was positive overall. The wide-ranging group of stakeholders met for about a year and drafted recommendations for the Whitefish Range.
“The large brushstrokes seem to align with what the community group put together,” he said. “We’re pretty pleased overall.”
Public comments are still being accepted for the revised Flathead Forest Plan. The proposed action can be reviewed online at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/flathead/fpr. A grizzly bear component can be reviewed online at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/flathead/gbamend.