Flathead National Forest releases draft Forest Plan environmental impact statement

The Flathead National Forest has a released a draft environmental impact statement for its new forest plan. The plan includes four alternatives — a no action alternative, an alternative that includes no wilderness recommendations and then two others that are somewhere in between.

The no action alternative maintains the status quo from the original 1986 plan.

Alternative B bumps the current recommended wilderness from 98,388 acres to 187,741 acres and alternative C calls for 506,919 acres of recommended wilderness.

Alternative B recommends wilderness in the Jewel Basin region, near Slippery Bill Mountain in the Middle Fork of the Flathead; along the Swan Front from Razzle Creek south to Wolverine Peak, along Dean Ridge in the Spotted Bear drainage and in the North Fork from just north of Red Meadow Road north to the Canadian border on lands along the Whitefish Divide. Alternative C has wilderness recommendations for the Swan Front from Columbia Falls south to Wolverine Peak, additions to the Great Bear Wilderness on both sides of the existing wilderness boundary and extensive wilderness designations in the North Fork of the Flathead, with patches from Canyon Creek north to Mount Hefty. 

The Forest is 2.4 million acres total and currently about 1.072 million acres are wilderness, which includes a large portion of the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Great Bear Wilderness.

Wilderness advocates have long sought further wilderness designations in the North Fork of the Flathead, in the Spotted Bear region, along the Swan Front and additions to the Mission Mountain wilderness as well.

Any wilderness designation would require Congressional approval.

From a timber perspective, the alternatives anticipate an annual saw log harvest in the range of 18 to 29 million board feet annually, based on budget constraints in the first 10 years. Alternative D, which calls for no wilderness, has the highest amount of harvest at 29.2 million board feet annually over the first 10 years, but alternative B, which has a blend of wilderness and timber harvest, has the best results in creating optimal forest conditions, while still harvesting 27.4 million board feet annually, according a Forest Service analysis.

With an unlimited budget, alternative B could see an annual harvest of 38.4 million board feet and alternative D could see 63.5 million board feet.

But the Forest Service hasn’t had an unlimited budget in decades. 

The timber base under alternative B is about 606,000 acres and under alternative C about 383,000 acres. Under alternative D, it’s about 590,000 acres.

Forest Supervisor Chip Weber, during a conference with newspapers Thursday, said the idea of the plan was to maintain ecological sustainability across the forest. He noted the forest’s ecosystem is one of the most intact in the world, still hosting a suite of predators and native flora and fauna.

The drafts will go through a round of public comments this summer and for the dedicated, will mean a lot of reading. Stacked on top of one another, the documents measure about a foot thick.

The effort to craft a new forest plan has been a long one that began in late 2013 with a  round of public field trips and then a host of public meetings after that. About 10 staffers have been working on the plan over the course of the past three years at a cost of about $2.4 million, noted planner Joe Krueger.

The drafts aren’t just about wilderness and timber. It also includes a host of recreational opportunities, including snowmobiling, ATV use and mountain biking. They also take into account future management of 32 species of conservation concern, including 25 plants, six terrestrial species and one aquatic species. The plan also looks at Wild and Scenic River designations for several streams and water bodies.

The plan is designed to be adaptive, meaning it will change over time as conditions on the ground change. It is, in essence, a zoning document for the Forest. It does not call for specific projects, but it does identify areas where certain uses are appropriate.

It also takes into account past public efforts and collaboration, most notably the Whitefish Range Partnership, which was a group of various interests that came together to make land use recommendations in the North Fork of the Flathead.

A final environmental impact statement will come about a year from now and ultimately, the final decision on the plan will come from Weber and Forest staff.  

The document also includes Forest plan amendments to the Helena, Kootenai, Lewis and Clark and Lolo National Forests to incorporate the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem draft grizzly bear conservation strategy.

The grizzly bear conservation strategy is written directly into the Flathead’s plan, but the other four forests needed the grizzly amendment. To view all the documents, go to: http://www.fs.usda.gov/flathead and click on the “Forest Plan Revision” link. Hard copies of the plan will also be distributed to local libraries and will be available at the forest’s offices in Kalispell.

There will also be an open house at the Flathead National Forest headquarters in Kalispell from 2 to 6 p.m. June 20.