Logging Roads Aimed At Grizzly Habitat Public Money Could Help Pay For Access Into Selkirk Mountains

Public money may help open some of the last key grizzly bear, caribou and wolf habitat in the Selkirk Mountains to serious logging and road construction, biologists and environmentalists say.

The U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are poised to approve an agreement, part of which calls for three access roads from Colville National Forest land to Stimson Lumber Co. land north of Usk, Wash.

The taxpayers will provide $30,000 of the yearly cost for maintaining these approximately two miles of access roads - which is fairly routine. The agreement that allows the next part of this picture is more unusual.

Stimson will use those roads as a springboard to build 59 miles of road on its own property in key endangered grizzly bear habitat with the government’s blessing, only the second time such an agreement has been made, the Fish and Wildlife Service says.

Under federal law, the Forest Service is required to provide Stimson reasonable access to its land. Environmentalists argue that amounts to one access road, not three. The Forest Service disagrees.

And Colville Forest Supervisor Bob Vaught said his agency also will monitor Stimson’s performance and “we will get compliance.”

Still, these roads almost certainly will harm the beleaguered grizzly and caribou that range between North Idaho and Eastern Washington in what’s formally called the LeClerc Grizzly Bear Management Unit, biologists and environmentalists say.

The key problem, critics say, is a flawed agreement for protecting endangered species that the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service negotiated with Stimson. Even officials from both agencies concede the language is vague and tenuous.

Moreover, the Kalispell Tribe, which by law was supposed to be included in making the deal, says it was left out when the deal was forged. The Forest Service denies that charge.

The Fish and Wildlife Service admits it inadvertently failed to talk to the tribe. Officials say they are trying to rectify that as well as make the best of inevitable logging and road building in the key bear and caribou territory.

But the tribe and environmentalists wonder if it’s too late.

“The Kalispell Tribe has no beef with Stimson Lumber,” emphasized Scott Hall, the tribe’s watershed manager. “Our beef is with the federal agencies who clearly failed in tribal consultation” - an error he believes was accidental.

Beyond that, he believes the agencies, especially the Fish and Wildlife Service, are letting the bear and caribou slip into oblivion with the weak agreement with Stimson.

“There’s no firm agreement that (Stimson) will do anything but keep their clearcuts less than a quarter-mile wide,” Hall said. “The thing that affects grizzly bears the most is roads and Stimson hasn’t agreed to limit their activities.

“So what’s the point?”

Tim Bertram, a Forest Service wildlife biologist involved in the issue, agrees it’s an imperfect deal. “I have kind of mixed feelings about it,” Bertram said.

“There are compromises, there are shortcomings in it, but it is better than what we had,” before the agreement, he said. “The fact remains there will be a lot more roads in core grizzly bear habitat, the habitat will be fragmented, and it won’t be good for grizzly bears.

“But they are a timber company after all.”

Several attempts to reach Stimson Lumber Co. officials in Oregon for comment Friday were not successful.

Michelle Eames, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, says the agreement, while roundly criticized, does have some positive sides.

“Because it was a negotiated agreement, we could only make (Stimson) do what they were willing to do,” Eames cautioned. “It’s not the best thing for grizzly bears, but it does avoid pushing them closer to extinction.”

Although she has some discomfort with some of the gray wording in the Stimson agreement, she believes the Fish and Wildlife Service may be able to charge the timber company with a felony under the Endangered Species Act if it doesn’t follow the deal. And that’s a powerful enforcement tool.

Stimson’s project will degrade some high-elevation grizzly habitat, she said. There also will be 4,000 fewer acres of key grizzly and caribou habitat without roads.

But because the Fish and Wildlife Service persuaded the Forest Service and Stimson to restrict road use, the area has gained more than 6,900 acres of lower-elevation spring bear habitat, Eames said. And more spring bear habitat is critically needed.

Caribou will be protected by holding Stimson to only light selective logging in caribou winter range, Eames said.

Finally, because the agreement calls for the Fish and Wildlife Service to closely monitor Stimson, “we can guarantee the agreement will be implemented in a way that’s good for the grizzly bears,” she said.

But conservation groups, from the Selkirk-Priest Basin Association in Idaho to the Kettle Range Conservation Group in Washington find nothing to like in the deal.

“This road will result in dead bears, dead caribou and more mudslides,” said Mark Sprengel with the Pend Oreille Environmental Team. The latest science shows any road, open or closed, is hard on bears, he said.

So assurances of road restrictions, mean nothing, he said. “This is like a sweetheart deal, the taxpayers are going to pick up the tab to have their land degraded,” Sprengel said.

Other critics say history proves the deal won’t work. “They’ve been logging and building roads and closing roads for 100 years,” said Tim Coleman of the Kettle Range Conservation Group. “And bears and caribou have been steadily declining.

“They keep saying their management is going to make things better, and it never does.”

, DataTimes