Emergency Logging Met With Skepticism Action Linked To Douglas Fir Bark Beetle Infestation

Some folks living around Hayden Lake are unhappy the Forest Service will speed logging near their homes in light of the Douglas fir bark beetle infestation.

“I’m not convinced this isn’t a connived excuse, given the history of the Forest Service,” said Jules Gindraux, who moved to a home on Hayden Lake a few months ago from the Priest Lake area. “Virtually all claims by the Forest Service of benefit to be gained have been shown to be groundless or downright misleading.”

Last Thursday, the Idaho Panhandle National Forests received emergency authority from the Forest Service’s Washington, D.C., office to start preparing timber sales and watershed restoration on 4,000 acres around Hayden and Fernan lakes. Normally that work isn’t supposed to begin until after the final environmental analysis is finished and all appeals have been resolved.

Now the timber can be sold a little more than 30 days after the final environmental study is completed on May 15. That’s important to deal with the fire danger posed by dense stands of dying Douglas fir, Forest Service officials said.

The logging won’t just deal with dead Douglas fir. The Forest Service now acknowledges that 15 million board feet of live, healthy trees - enough to build 1,500 homes - will be logged in the process.

That’s necessary to create larger openings, allowing sunlight to help regenerate more insect and fire resistant white pine, larch and ponderosa pine, the Forest Service said.

Another 21,000 acres of land the Forest Service wants to log as a result of the bug assault is not covered by the fast-track waiver granted by Washington, D.C.

“Initially, we asked for an exemption for the whole project,” said Brad Gilbert of the Panhandle Forests. But deep snow at higher elevations will stall any logging, whether on a fast track or not.

The Newport District of the Colville National Forest, also part of this bark beetle logging project, decided not to ask for emergency authority soon after the plan was unveiled in late November.

On the lands where the Forest Service has the emergency authority, the agency will have a head start on watershed restoration and road removal - not just logging, Gilbert said.

Some people who live around Hayden Lake don’t find comfort in the Forest Service’s words.

“I’m not as worried about the fire danger from letting (the trees) stand as much as I am from cutting them down,” said Jim Bingham, a Spokane physician whose family spends its summers in their cabin on the east side of Hayden Lake.

He is similarly worried about increased runoff and erosion from logging, based on his past experiences with selective logging.

“The runoff is still horrendous and the mud and the muck still goes into the lake,” Bingham said. “Cutting down every stick of wood, I think, isn’t going to help regenerate the forest when all of the topsoil is sitting in Hayden Lake.”

Larry McLaud, who fought fires for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for 12 years before going to work for the Idaho Conservation League, says he fears the logging will increase the fire danger.

“If they go in and helicopter log and leave the tops and limbs the fire danger could actually increase in the short term,” McLaud said. “This emergency timber proposal will cost taxpayers a bundle, not stop the bugs, increase the fire danger.”

Gilbert, of the Panhandle Forests, says more of the slash will be removed by helicopter close to town. Farther out, it will be chopped up and spread across the ground so it will decompose faster.

In the short term, fire danger will increase, he acknowledged. In the long term, it will drop, he said.

Earlier, Forest Supervisor Dave Wright said the logging cannot stop fires, only reduce the intensity.

The timber industry, meanwhile, wishes the Forest Service already had logged the 25,000 acres. Now the beetles will spread, from infested trees to new trees.

“The window is gone,” said Stefany Bales. “They’re not going to be harvesting trees with hibernating bugs in them.”

The Forest Service also has a good neighbor responsibility to move fast to make sure the infestation doesn’t spread to neighboring private timberlands, Bales said.

In the end, “people must make a choice about the kind of forests they want - vibrant, healthy and growing or unnaturally dense, dead and dying.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S NEXT The Idaho Department of Lands and U.S. Forest Service will hold a workshop Sunday and Monday at The Coeur d’Alene Resort to help rural homeowners understand wildfire and take steps to reduce the threat around their homes. People who are interested should call the Department of Lands at 769-1522.

Staff writer Zaz Hollander contributed to this report.