By Michael Howell
State Senator Pat Connell beat the Forest Service to the draw in discussing a proposed timber sale on national forest land in the Upper East Fork with the Ravalli County Commissioners. Connell met with the commissioners on Thursday, December 3. Forest Service officials presented their view of the proposal to the commissioners five days later.
The proposal is called the Meadow Vapor project, and the scoping area includes close to 8,400 acres in the Upper East Fork including the Meadow Creek, Vapor Creek, Needle Creek, Reynolds Creek, and Tepee Creek drainages. It would involve harvest, thinning and prescribed burning on 3,200 of those acres. The project is designed to meet vegetative management, fuels reduction and watershed management goals in the area. It would produce about 5 million board feet of timber, or about 1,000 truckloads to local mills.
Although the scoping area of the project is fairly large, Connell thinks it should be even larger. He told the commissioners that in his opinion the project should include even more drainages in the area. He mentioned Marten, Moose and Paint Creeks and stated that unless they enlarge the project area to include more of Reynolds Creek as well as Lick Creek, the proposed road work in those areas would legally have to be eliminated from the plan.
Connell claims that if the Forest Service fails to extend the boundaries of the project to include the nearby drainages it will probably be decades before they return to the area, leaving the untreated drainages in desperate need of watershed protection efforts and susceptible to crown fires. He was also critical of some of the planned road closures in the project area.
On December 8, Darby District Ranger Eric Winthers and project leader Soil Scientist Cole Mayn addressed the county commissioners and met many of the same objections that Connell voiced.
In response to questions about the road closures, Mayn said that each road in the project area is examined by a team of scientists looking at things from different angles including soil and water conservation, timber management, fire suppression and recreation, among other things. A criteria is applied and the team works towards the best possible plan considering all the factors involved. These decisions are also budget driven as it may be cost effective to decommission a road and avoid decades of maintenance if it is already not being used. He said decommissioned roads are not necessarily obliterated and may remain usable for hiking and horse travel.
Commissioner Greg Chilcott asked if any of the roads being closed were RS 2477 roads, that is, roads set aside by an Act of Congress in 1866 as right-of-ways belonging to the state and local governments to be used by the public. Although the Act was repealed in 1976, the right-of-ways remain grandfathered in for public use. Chilcott said the commissioners were obligated to consider the issue of those right-of-ways.
“We are duty bound to look at that,” said Chilcott.
Commissioner Jeff Burrows was critical of the plan to re-contour the first tenth of a mile of the decommissioned roads. He said that he would like to see the details about the hydrological or soil stability issues that would require that treatment. Without seeing that, he said, it looked like the Forest Service was just trying to block access.
Commissioner J.R. Iman stated that the County has a natural resource policy that does not support road closures and they [the Forest Service] were removing about 30 miles of road in their plan.
Mayn said that most of the roads being decommissioned in the Meadow Vapor project were already so overgrown with vegetation that no motorized vehicles can use them. He reiterated that the decommissioned roads were still open to foot traffic and horses.
Mike Jeffords of the Ravalli County Off Road Association said his group was in support of the project although they did have concerns about some of the road closures. He urged the Forest Service to think more about recreation as part of their planning.
Larry Campbell urged the commissioners and the Forest Service to base any of their decisions on the best possible science. He said that sedimentation in the creeks from roadways was a big problem on the forest.
The Forest Service is accepting comments on the proposed project through December 18. Comments may be submitted to Eric Winthers, District Ranger, Darby/Sula Ranger District, by one of the following methods: mail: P.O. Box 388, Darby, Montana 59829; fax: 821-4264, or email: comments-northern-bitterroot-darby@fs.fed.us. Comments should include: 1) name, address, phone number, and organization represented, if any; 2) title of project on which the comments are being submitted; and 3) substantive comments including specific facts and supporting information for the District Ranger to consider.
For more information contact the Darby/Sula Ranger District at 821-3913.