The Bitterroot National Forest is inviting the public to review and make comments on a proposed fuels reduction, vegetation management, and forest health improvement project on the Stevensville and Darby Ranger Districts. The Bitterroot Front Project encompasses approximately 144,000 acres of the Bitterroot mountains from McClain Creek on the northern end of the forest to Trapper Creek on the southern end.
According to the Forest Service press release, the Montana Forest Action Plan recently identified the area as having high wildfire risk to communities and infrastructure and significant forest health concerns. Ravalli County currently has the greatest risk from wildfires in Montana, with six communities in the top 10 of all Montana communities with structures at risk from wildfire.
The Bitterroot Community Wildfire Protection Plan, they note, has also identified the project area as a ‘high priority’ for fuels reduction to reduce wildfire threats to lives, property, resources, and communities within the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI).
Objectives of the project include reducing the current and future wildfire risk to people, private lands, and resource values by reducing hazardous forest fuels; improving forest resilience to natural disturbances (fire, insects, and disease) by modifying forest conditions; improving wildlife habitat and forage for elk and other big game animals; and contributing to the local economy by providing timber products and related jobs.
The agency states that dense vegetation conditions in the project area have decreased the ability of the forest to recover from or adapt to future disturbances and stressors such as insects, disease, fire, and climate change. Fire suppression efforts since the early 20th century have caused a departure from historic fire frequencies, resulting in our current forest health crisis with high stem densities, hazardous fuels build up, and stressed tree conditions. Proposed treatments include prescribed fire, non-commercial thinning, and commercial harvesting.
The proposed activities are not located or described in detail but presented as “areas of opportunity” for such activities. For instance, after excluding certain areas from commercial timber harvesting (mostly because they were already logged or burned, a total of 55,133 acres remain where commercial harvesting may take place across the project area. Of the 55,133 acres of commercial harvesting across the project area, just over 13,000 acres falls in inventoried roadless areas.
“Commercial harvesting in roadless areas focuses on thinning small diameter timber and vegetation to maintain or restore desirable forest species composition and stand structure while reducing risks of uncharacteristic wildfire effects. These activities would mimic what would be expected under natural disturbance regimes of the current climatic period. Please note that this proposal does not include any road construction or reconstruction in inventoried roadless area,” it states in the scoping documents.
The existing forest and fuels conditions within these areas will determine the intensity and specific types of vegetation management that occurs, and, in some cases,
commercial timber harvesting may be followed by post-harvest fuels management activities to meet project objectives.
Increased tree mortality from insects and disease is also a serious concern. The project area has dense pockets of dead and dying trees impacted by mountain pine beetle, Douglas-fir bark beetle, and western spruce budworm damage.
According to officials, the project aligns with the recently released Wildfire Crisis Strategy that works with partners to protect communities and improve the resilience of America’s Forests. The strategy includes an increase in fuels and forest health treatments by up to four times current treatment levels in the West.
They describe the Bitterroot Front Project as “a landscape-scale proposal to accelerate the pace and scale of active forest restoration.” It proposes a “Shared Stewardship Approach” to encourage vegetation treatments across boundaries and improve conditions across the entire landscape. Private landowners along the forest boundary will be invited to participate in the project through Bitter Root Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) and Good Neighbor Authority. The agreement supports partners working together to accelerate the pace of fuels reduction on National Forest lands in areas with cross-boundary benefits.
According to Forest Service officials, even though vegetative treatments would be primarily focused within the WUI, the project area boundary was left larger to allow the opportunity to address other resource issues within the area including roads, recreation, and scenery.
Friends of the Bitterroot, a local conservation organization, having reviewed the proposal, has some serious objections, according to President Jim Miller. He called it a “massive project” that would certainly require a full Environmental Impact Statement and not simply an Environmental Assessment.
“This project has a huge potential for greatly altering the whole landscape,” he said. He said the promise of the project is to increase forest resilience and reduce fire danger but that is not a likely outcome with so much commercial logging proposed.
“I don’t think anyone can believe at this point that logging can increase forest resilience or decrease wildfire potential,” said Miller. “We believe the purpose and need of the project is being falsely stated.”
He was critical of the Forest Service’s new “condition-based analysis” approach.
“It doesn’t inform the public at all about what they are going to do and where,” he said. He said they are telling the public that they are going to do a lot of things but that they are going to figure it out later and promise to do it correctly.
“We believe this condition-based analysis is just cutting the public out of the management of the people’s public forest,” said Miller. “How can they expect people to meaningfully participate when they are not disclosing what they are doing in any specific area? We would like to know some specifics about what they are proposing across 144,000 acres of forest.”
Miller said they do support work in the true Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and work immediately around homes and structures, and near communities. He said the Forest Service has stretched the WUI deep into the forest unnecessarily. He said climate, weather and temperatures determine fire severity more than the fuels loads. He said there is evidence that shaded forest land contains more moisture and is more fire resistant than heavily logged areas. He said the evidence was seen here in the fires of 2000 where the most intense fires were on Darby Lumber land and state land that was under intense timber management.
“Deforestation of the Bitterroot is not the answer to climate warming,” said Miller. “It’s doing exactly the opposite of what we need to do.”
To learn more about the Bitterroot Front Project and to view maps visit www.fs.usda.gov/bitterroot. Click on ‘Land and Resource Management’, then ‘Projects’. Public comments specific to this project are valuable in helping the Forest Service identify potential issues and concerns. Comments are due by May 20, 2022
To provide electronic comments and to subscribe for project updates, please visit the project website at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=57341 (click on Comment/Object on right side of the page).
If you wish to comment in writing, address comments to: Bitterroot National Forest, Stevensville Ranger District Front Desk, 88 Main Street, Stevensville MT 59870. Fax: 406-777-7423. Comments may also be hand delivered weekdays 8:00am – 4:30pm.
Comments should include: 1) name, address, phone number, and organization represented, if any; 2) substantive comments including specific facts and supporting information for the Forest Supervisor to consider. Include “Bitterroot Front Project” in the email subject line. All comments are open to public inspection and will be posted to the Forest Service website.
Only individuals or entities who submit timely and specific written comments about the proposed project during the public comment period will be eligible to file an objection.
For more information or questions concerning the project, contact Steve Brown, Stevensville District Ranger at (406) 777-5461 or Abbie Jossie, Darby-Sula District Ranger at (406) 821-3913.
Kristine Erickson says
Hi, my husband and I are in support of forest management. We feel that fire is a danger to all of us who choose to live on boundries of the national forest and with forest management we might save lives and homes. We feel the elk and wildlife will return to the forest I’f the elk have cleared areas with grass to graze (hopefully they will return to the wild and off hay fields that ranchers need to feed their stock.) We have fire concerns and have thinned our tree around all our buildings and home however we are not out if danger. We feel this offer if forest managemet or thinning will help all of our fire risk.
Rebecca Banks says
My husband and I are property owners in the Darby area. Each year we are concerned about the fire danger, smoke inhalation damage, destruction of habitat for animals, stream destruction. etc. We have reviewed and discussed the proposed Front Project and find it to be a sound, well planned project with inter-group cooperation, large government funding, etc. It would greatly enhance our landscape, reduce fire fuels, and improve the overall appearance of our valley.
Similar smaller projects were done at Bass Creek Area, north side of Como, etc. They improved the scenic beauty of the areas and will greatly reduce fire danger in the future. There will be NO clearcutting, and very little changes from the highway corridors. It will be a well -coordinated effort with many participating groups over this 10 yr project