Up A Creek: Forest Service May Back Out On Promise Plans To See If Logging Increases Flooding May Be Cut
When they planned one of the country’s biggest timber sales above one of North Idaho’s most important trout streams, U.S. Forest Service officials told fishermen not to worry.
Citing the agency’s new “light on the land” approach, they promised the Horizon sale would not worsen Mother Nature’s habit of sending bursts of melted snow - and with it rock and dirt - into Wolf Lodge Creek.
If they’re wrong, the local forest ranger said, they’ll scale back future logging.
But there may be no way to prove whether floods become more frequent or intense after the logging, which began last year. The Fernan Ranger District says it can’t afford to keep the only streamflow gauge on Wolf Lodge Creek.
“We asked for money,” said district planner Patrick Sheridan. “We document the need for monitoring; we think it’s important. But there’s lots of sharp knives out there when it comes to budget.”
Under pressure from environmentalists and state biologists, Forest Service higher-ups are looking for ways to keep their commitment to monitoring. If those don’t include finding $8,500 to operate the streamflow gauge, it will be yanked this spring.
“I certainly would like to see it remain in place,” said Janet Funk, who lives along the lower creek.
She worries about floods as well as fish.
She’s not confident the federal agency will be held accountable for any damage that results from logging.
“I’m just very, very disappointed with everything the Forest Service has told us from day one,” she said of the Horizon sale.
It was former District Ranger Don Bright who decided to sell 30 million board feet of timber in 1993 and another 4 million board feet in 1998. That’s enough to build 3,400 houses. If the trees didn’t go to sawmills, Bright argued, many of them would die anyway of disease.
Bright dubbed the sale “Horizon” because he liked the placid sound of it. But there were flashes of discontent on the horizon.
Much of the watershed had already been logged. The rest of it comprised one of the last roadless areas in the Panhandle.
Environmentalists filed appeals, trying to stop the sale. But both the forest supervisor and regional forester supported Bright’s decision. One big objection was that newly exposed slopes and logging roads would increase runoff when winter rains pelt the snow. Pulses of water have already washed much sediment into Wolf Lodge Creek, the major rearing area for cutthroat trout that live in the north end of Lake Coeur d’Alene.
In 1977, researchers estimated that 2,800 trout were spawning there. In 1983, many fish died when a pipeline break poured gasoline into the creek. That loss, combined with a shortage of deep pools in the creek, added to concern that the trout population is dropping.
The Idaho Fish and Game Department considered fighting the Horizon sale, said regional fish manager Ned Horner.
“The Forest Service said ‘We can pull this off without harming the fish and wildlife and human resources, because we are going to do things differently,”’ Horner recalled.
“So we said, ‘We can go along with that as long as there is an intensive monitoring program in place.’ They said, ‘OK, we can live with that.”’
Horizon planning documents divide monitoring needs into 12 categories, two of which are legally required. Those not required - including the water yield and sediment monitoring - are listed with a boldfaced warning that “It is doubtful that annual budgets will fully fund all of the monitoring described below.”
Idaho Fish and Game was reminded of that statement last year, when the department protested Forest Service plans to stop paying for gauge operation.
The Forest Service came up with the cash for 1994, but this year said it could not. It asked for help from other agencies, including Fish and Game, but didn’t get it.
“I’m having difficulty believing that among all the agencies that have an interest in getting that data, that they can’t find $8,000,” said Joe Hinson, executive vice president of the Intermountain Forest Industry Association.
“That’s not a money problem,” he added. “That’s a priority problem.”
Industry wants the monitoring done, too, Hinson said. However, he thinks the state Division of Environmental Quality should do the work. It enforces the federal Clean Water Act.
Whoever pays, Hinson noted that the pricetag is small compared to the $14.3 million that the federal government got for the Horizon timber.
“But that’s a lot of money to operate a stream gauge,” he said.
The U.S. Geological Survey maintains the gauge. Manager Steve Lipscomb said it’s costly for scientists from the Sandpoint office to visit there every six weeks, feed the statistics into computers and re-check them to ensure that they’re accurate.
Although Lipscomb couldn’t say why it was installed, the gauge has been on Wolf Lodge Creek since 1985. The Geological Survey used it in the early ‘90s to measure runoff during a study of Lake Coeur d’Alene. The gauge just happened to be there when Horizon came along.
The gauging equipment is kept in a round hut about two miles up the Wolf Lodge Creek road. While several scientists agreed that it provides valuable information, they also said it’s not the best way to measure increased water yield from Horizon logging.
For one thing, the gauge is too far down in the watershed. There’s private land below the national forest, some of it also logged.
Also, “peak flows are most dramatic in the smaller tributaries,” said Fernan District hydrologist Judy McHugh.
She’s recommended using student workers this summer to mark the route of those upstream creeks. Heavy runoff would cause the channels to change shape, she explained.
“We could go back and measure again in 10 years, after the harvest,” McHugh said.
The ranger district already has done some stream surveys and other less-expensive monitoring efforts.
Horner, the state biologist, said he doesn’t care how the Forest Service does the monitoring.
He just wants it done well.
One-fourth of Horizon’s 30 million board feet has already come off the slopes.
“Over the next three years, a lot more timber volume will come off,” Horner said. “It will take 10 to 15 more years for the impacts to be felt. It’s unacceptable not to be able to say what the impacts are.”
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