Undisturbed Wildlife Area Targeted For Salvage Logging

More than 11 miles of road will be built in one of the largest tracts of undisturbed land near the Boise area under a plan to allow timber companies to thin forests and remove dead trees near Lowman.

The U.S. Forest Service wants to permit logging on 19,160 acres of the Deadwood Roadless Area, invoking a federal law that prohibits environmental appeals of salvage logging.

The area is important habitat for elk and other wildlife.

Most timber sales require extensive environmental analyses, called environmental impact statements, and can be appealed to the Forest Service or taken to federal court.

The salvage law removes the impact-statement requirement, prohibits administrative appeals and exempts salvage action from most federal environmental law.

The Forest Service says it needs to thin the forest to stave off the catastrophic fires that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of Boise National Forest in recent years.

The Forest Service hopes to offer the first sale in September and the second in late 1996.