Tree-thinning fight flares

A logging and wildfire reduction project north of Bonners Ferry is fanning the flames in an old fight between conservation groups and the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

The U.S. Forest Service wants to thin about 900 acres of thick forest surrounding an increasingly crowded residential area about six miles north of Bonners Ferry. The so-called Templeman Project could dump sediment into nearby streams and would do more harm than good to the forest, according to several environmental groups now trying to block the action.

Both sides say the other just doesn’t get it – a claim that’s been echoing across North Idaho’s federal forests for the better part of a generation.

“We really feel that we are doing the conservation measures on the forest, yet we’re getting sued more and more,” said Dave O’Brien, spokesman for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

Said Jonathan Oppenheimer, with the Idaho Conservation League: “This is basically a large timber sale project being devised in such a way as to approve it with less oversight. … What we’re seeing is part of a pattern of abuse, and it’s almost solely on the Panhandle.”

No lawsuits have been filed, but the administrative appeals sent to the agency last week by the Idaho Conservation League, The Lands Council, The Ecology Center and the Selkirk Conservation Alliance will stall the project for at least another month and are the first sign that litigation could be coming soon. The groups are asking for a more thorough analysis of possible impacts to nearby streams and rivers from the project.

Oppenheimer said the Templeman Project is an example of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests’ systematic overuse of a three-year-old Bush administration tool aimed at reducing timber sale red tape. The program was meant to reduce the amount of environmental analysis in certain smaller projects, particularly those involving wildfire reduction.

“Everywhere else throughout the state we’re seeing pretty appropriate use of these new authorities,” Oppenheimer said.

Oppenheimer pointed out that the Idaho Conservation League has not appealed a project in North Idaho in five years. He said his group has had long talks with the agency in recent weeks to share concerns over the Templeman Project in hopes of averting an appeal. But none of the concerns were addressed in the final project, he said.

The thinning would take place over three years, with the logging occurring in winter, when the ground is frozen and machinery won’t disturb the soil or spread noxious weed seeds, said Barry Wynsma, project leader for the Bonners Ferry Ranger District. The forest in the area is becoming prone to explosive wildfire, which would threaten at least 35 homes surrounded by the land.

Simply thinning the forest would cost at least $1,000 per acre, but by selling timber from the area, the work pays for itself, and the agency generates anywhere from $300 to $600 per acre. The project is estimated to result in 4 million board feet of timber for local mills.

Wynsma said the Forest Service doesn’t have the money to pay for the thinning work needed nationwide – commercial sales need to be included to accomplish the work. But this also seems to be stirring the environmentalist hornet’s nest.

“The trigger (for lawsuits) is if it involves a commercial harvest,” Wynsma said.

Boundary County Commissioner Dan Dinning said he’s angered and frustrated by the appeal. He said most residents of the county support the thinning project and worry it could be the site of the next big fire – in 2003, a wildfire west of Bonners Ferry burned 3,600 acres and wiped out the city’s water supply.

“This is about as clean of a project as you can get,” Dinning said, before offering another explanation for his frustration, “We are charged to protect our citizens the best we can, but there are those who are not part of the community that feel they know better for us than we do.”

But local support for the project is hardly unanimous. Chris Haworth’s 20 acres border the forest targeted for thinning. He moved here eight years ago from Colorado, to escape what he said was the state’s booming population and disappearing nature.

“If the Forest Service goes through with it at the scale they want, everything that I moved up here for is gone,” Haworth said. “Those of us who live up here, live up here because we love the land, we love the forest.”

Haworth worries that logging and possible use of chemical weed sprays would threaten the purity of his well. The work would also destroy the serenity of his surroundings for the next three winters, as well as boost truck traffic on nearby narrow roads. He explained his basis for opposing the project as, “It’s a national forest and I am a citizen of this country.”

The regional Forest Service office in Missoula will consider the appeals and is expected to issue a ruling by mid-May.