Missoula Forest Office To Stay Open Forest Service Scraps Plan To Merge With Denver

A Montana congressman says the U.S. Forest Service has scrapped a plan to merge the Northern Region office in Missoula with the Denver office.

Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., said Tuesday that the headquarters will be streamlined, but the region that includes North Idaho, all of Montana and a thin slice of the Dakotas will remain intact.

No one knows yet how many jobs the change will affect, Williams said.

The original merger proposal would have cost possibly 326 jobs in Missoula.

“I expect that we will see reductions in the Missoula office, partly through transfers and partly through retirements or buyouts, of between dozens of people and up to 150,” Williams said. “But that is just what I’m piecing together from different offices.”

Williams said the Forest Service and Department of Agriculture relied heavily on a report by local business leaders and forest scientists that emphasized the need to keep national forest managers and resources close to the land and people.

“Forest Service Chief Jack Thomas, in particular, was very understanding of our argument that the land can best be managed by those closest to it, those living on it,” Williams said.

The Forest Service made the merger proposal in December. It would have closed the Northern Region office in Missoula and combined it with the Rocky Mountain Region office in Denver.

Acting regional forester John Hughes said Williams’ announcement “comes close” to what Hughes has heard unofficially. He said the new plan “probably makes sense.”

Two members of the local task force that lobbied to keep the Missoula office, University of Montana Professor Bob Pfister and Missoula Economic Development Corp. Director Ron Klaphake, agreed with Hughes.

“We really believed there could be some economies and changes made, but that decision-makers should stay closer to the land,” Klaphake said.