Bark Beetle Timber Sales Win Approval Forest Service To Map Out Logging On 15,000 Acres In Panhandle Forests

Regional U.S. Forest Service officials have backed a local agency plan to battle the Douglas fir bark beetle with logging.

That means officials can start mapping out timber sales on roughly 15,000 acres of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. A similar decision is pending for another 5,000 acres on the Newport Ranger District of Washington’s Colville National Forest.

“This allows us to proceed with our project within 15 days of the decision,” said Brad Gilbert of the Panhandle National Forests. The decision was made Tuesday but announced Friday. “We will prepare sales and offer them as fast as we can.”

Responding to three different administrative appeals from environmental groups, a review team in the agency’s Missoula regional headquarters said an environmental analysis by Panhandle officials on proposed logging and associated restoration efforts passed muster.

Such appeals are the first step toward filing a lawsuit to block the logging.

The Ecosystem Center in Missoula, one appellant representing 15 groups, will decide within a few weeks whether to take the Forest Service to federal court, said the center’s Jeff Juel.

The other two groups were the Idaho Sporting Congress and the Western Fire Ecology Center in Eugene, Ore. Neither were available for comment.

The regional decision didn’t come as a surprise, Juel said.

“We saw documented collusion all the way to (Forest Service chief Mike) Dombeck’s office that this was one illegal act they were going to let go,” he said.

The timber industry applauded the decision, a spokeswoman said, but anticipates future lawsuits.

Stefany Bales, with the Intermountain Forest Association, called the regional decision “confirmation that the Panhandle forest has done a thorough job in developing a plan to deal with a very real and very serious problem.”

The Forest Service wants to log nearly 25,000 acres on the Panhandle and Colville national forests to stem the worst beetle outbreak in 40 years. Along with the logging, the agency plans forest restoration efforts such as relocating or removing roads.

Timber companies have already bought two timber sales within a 4,000-acre parcel put on the fast-track for logging by Forest Service officials in Washington, D.C. Another two sales are being advertised for auction toward the end of the month.

But sales outside the 4,000-acre parcel will move more slowly.

“There’s still planning to do. We won’t get them all offered this calendar year,” Gilbert said.