Stakeholders get started on Cedar-Thom

If the Sanders Mineral Forest Coalition was happy with taking a big step forward by adopting their first project in Mineral County at their March meeting, they will now have to be satisfied with a slow laborious crawl if they want to see the project come to fruition.

“It’s hard work and it doesn’t come easy,” said Chuck Sperry, a facilitator from the National Forest Foundation, at a public meeting for the Cedar-Thom project. “It’s hard work, but it’s worth it. You better believe that. It can pay off,” he added.

The SMFC was formed in May 2007 with the endorsement of commissioners from Mineral and Sanders Counties. The goal of the coalition is to bring a diverse group of people together to come up with a collaborative approach on how to manage federal lands.

By bringing together a cross section of different interest and coming up with a consensus approach, the coalition tries to avoid litigation.

Wednesday’s public meeting at the Superior Ranger Station was the first SMFC meeting since it adopted the Cedar-Thom project last month. The Cedar-Thom project encompasses a 64,000 area between the Cedar Creek and Thompson Creek drainage immediately southwest of Superior.

Superior District Ranger Sharon Sweeney told the about 25 people at the meeting this area was chosen using the Forest Service’s Regional Integrated Restoration and Protection Strategy.

She said the strategy uses the criteria of aquatic restoration of watersheds, the wild urban interface, the winter range and wildlife habitat and the overall health of the forest to decide which areas need work. She said the Cedar-Thom areas needs work in all four criteria.

Sweeney said the coalition “would get down in the dirt” with the Forest Service from the start to develop what proposed action to take to restore the area and warned the group that the project could take three-to-four years to complete.

She said it will be the collaborative group’s proposed action, not the Forest Service’s, that they file under the National Environmental Policy Act, an act which requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of proposed projects which could significantly affect the environment.

While it will be the coalition’s proposed action, Sweeney said the Forest Service has a lot of information and will play a major role. “The Forest Service needs to be an equal participant in this collaborative group. We won’t lead, but we need to be at the table,” she said. “I just see a tremendous amount of value in coming together and people being at the table helping out and I think we can work together to come up with a great project,” Sweeney said.

“In this early stage it’s easy to be enthusiastic,” Sperry said after Sweeney finished talking. Sperry, who said he was hired by the National Forest Foundation to control the flow of the meeting and make sure everybody’s voices gets heard, said he has been involved with the collaborative approach process for over twenty years and it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to get it done.

Sperry said the worst thing the group could do was try to go too fast. “So often, when these things go awry it’s because they’re rushed, pushed too hard and too fast,” he said.

Sperry wanted to know how many of the audience was committed in staying with the project for three years. “Are you comfortable to committing to that length of time? Are you comfortable with that time frame, knowing that it’s a long arduous process?” Sperry asked. About half of the audience, which represented many different interest, including Forest Service workers, concerned residents of the area, timber workers, foresters and conservationist, raised their hands to show they were committed to seeing it through the end.

Sperry told the audience that for the group to be successful all the key stakeholders need to be involved and regularly participate in the decision making.

He said there must be consensus on all major decisions. “Every participant must be able to at least live with the decision and support it and not do anything to undermine the outcome,” he said.

The project will take three stages, said Sperry. In the first stage, the group must first agree and clarify the key issues of the project. He said the first stage would probably last until the fall. Once the key issues are clarified, the group must construct a proposed action to solve the issues. In the third stage, the group must reconvene as much as necessary to help the Forest Service with the NEPA range of alternatives.

The next public meeting for the Cedar-Thom project will be at 6 p.m., April 30, at the Superior Ranger Station.