Review half done for tornado salvage

BOISE – Payette National Forest officials are midway through an expedited environmental review that would clear the way for salvage logging of thousands of trees uprooted June 4 by a rare tornado in central Idaho.

Gov. Jim Risch has urged the agency to speed up bidding on salvage sale of the estimated $9 million in downed timber.

At the governor’s invitation, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth will visit the blowdown area this fall. By then, bidding may already be under way to clear the miles of downed or buckled ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and white pine trees.

An environmental assessment is expected to be completed by the end of September, said forest spokesman Boyd Hartwig.

The agency has already approved sale and removal of blowdown timber along miles of primitive roads within the forest.

Tamarack Mill, of Council, is clearing one-half million board feet of the blowdown along access roads. The logging firm also won a bid to haul 130,000 board feet of timber from roads outside boundaries of that sale.

A separate timber sale was awarded, without bid, to Summit Logging, also of Council, to remove 150,000 board feet of timber from roads along Bear Creek, just east of private lands bordering the forest.

A board foot is the equivalent of a piece of lumber measuring 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch.