By Michael Howell
Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Julie King has signed a Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact (DN/FONSI) for the Westside Collaborative Vegetation Management Project. The decision authorizes the forest to move forward on plans to thin approximately 2,300 acres of overstocked National Forest System (NFS) lands between Lost Horse Creek and Roaring Lion Creek, southwest of Hamilton.
The project is directly adjacent to the 1,429 acre, lightning-caused Observation Fire. Trees in several units on the project’s western edge were burned by the fire which is currently 35 percent contained.
Objectives of the project are to reduce hazardous fuels and lower crown fire hazards in the Wildland Urban Interface, improve forest resilience to natural disturbances such as fire, insects, and disease, manage timber to provide forest products, jobs and income to local communities, restore, maintain, and enhance wildlife and native plant habitat and diversity, including riparian areas and meadows, and develop sustainable road and bridge access for future forest management.
Proposed treatments include commercial timber harvest, non-commercial thinning, and prescribed burning to improve forest health.
The collaborative project is proposed under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA) and has received support from the State of Montana.
The project could begin as early as this fall and would provide 6.5 million board feet of timber to Montana sawmills.
Although the Forest Service is working out an agreement with some of the objectors to the project who live along Blue Jay Lane, a road across private land that will be used for hauling logs, other objectors have expressed continuing disagreement with the plan.
A press release from some of the objectors, including Jeff Lonn, Michele Dieterich, Fred Rohrbach, Peter Ransom and Stu Dobbins, states, “We are very disappointed that the Westside project was approved with no significant changes to the initial proposal despite many public objections and suggested resolutions.”
They claim the Forest Service has ignored the majority of public comments asking for modifications to the initial plan, particularly concerning the construction of new logging roads, a bridge across a pristine riparian area, heavy handed logging methods planned for the Coyote Coulee trail area, and the use of quiet residential roads by logging trucks.
They call the public process “a sham” and point to the fact that trees were marked for logging and geotechnical work for a new road bridge were done before the Environmental Assessment was released.
“It appears that the Forest Service never had any intent to compromise by considering public concerns, despite the project’s name: Westside ‘Collaborative’ Vegetation Management Project. This behavior will only increase the public’s distrust of the USFS,” states the press release.
The DN/FONSI is available online at www.fs.usda.gov/bitterroot. Click on ‘NEPA Projects’. Printed copies are also available at the Supervisor’s Office in Hamilton and the Darby Ranger District Office.
For more information or questions concerning the project, contact Eric Winthers, Darby/Sula District Ranger, at 821-3913.