Forest Service answers questions

SUPERIOR - Millworkers and worried citizens packed a basement floor meeting room in the Mineral County Courthouse eager to hear from representatives of the U.S. Forest Service.

Regional Forester Faye Krueger and new Lolo Forest Supervisor Tim Garcia were on hand April 11 to answer questions regarding forest restoration projects in Mineral County, which have been put on hold for some time. Superior District Ranger Tawnya Brummett was also in attendance.

The major concern is the $22 million Cedar Thom project, a 60,000 acre forest restoration which was proposed in 2009 for the Cedar Creek and Thompson Creek drainages south of Superior, and was supposed to be completed some years ago.

“We’re still waiting for them to render a decision and get something going,” Mineral County Commissioner Roman Zylawy said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been brought in to review the plan, because the Forest Service has listed Cedar Creek as a priority bull trout watershed, and now the Wildlife Service is doing a biological assessment before giving the OK to move forward.

“Cedar Thom has been ongoing the past few years and was supposed to be done back then,” said Josef Kuchera, financial controller with Tricon Timber. “The Fish and Wildlife Service still hasn’t responded to the letters we’ve sent.”

Zylawy began the meeting presenting statistical information on a white poster in the front of the room, pointing out the fact that timber sales in northern Idaho rose 18 percent in 2012-13, and during the same time dropped 42 percent in western Montana.

“The forest is degrading because the Forest Service isn’t keeping up with their job,” Kuchera said. “The Forest Service has a duty to manage the Lolo National Forest. All the logs we need are right here in Mineral County. It takes 68 million logs to feed mills, including living and dead trees.”

Kuchera said the Forest Service is afraid of lawsuits, and they are doing their job so it’s lawsuit free.

However, Krueger said she may be prepared to battle in court.

“We do have to go into a decision understanding there will be challenges in court,” Krueger said. “It doesn’t scare us, but it prepares us, and we want to be prepared.”

Zylawy doesn’t agree with the Forest Service decision which was against harvesting the remnants of the West Mullan wildfire from last summer, and he directed a message to Krueger and Garcia which yielded cheering from the crowd.

“Somebody in the Forest Service gets to make a decision that we can’t even raise our families on,” Zylawy said. “That’s where we want the interest to be, pounded in your mind when you’re in Missoula thinking about projects for us.”

Brummett explained she decided at the district level not to pull her environmental analysis team off three big landscape projects instead of working on smaller salvage ones that had potential legal challenges.

“It’s not that we don’t have the desire or the interest,” Garcia said. “It’s a capacity issue, and we’re making the best resource allocations and prioritizations based on what we think can get accomplished.”

Krueger told everyone in attendance she wants to focus on solutions, but can’t do it alone.

“How do we get this moving and how do you want to participate?” she asked.

Garcia promised to work and get things moving along as well.

“It affects everyone in this community, and the last thing we want to do is negatively impact communities,” Garcia said.

Krueger urged those involved to follow-up Friday’s meeting with a council involving Garcia and Brummett to collaborate on a plan to address Mineral County’s concerns. Zylawy and Commissioners Laurie Johnston and Duane Simon were eager to participate. Isaiah McGuffey, a night shift supervisor at Tricon Timber isn’t completely convinced by what he heard.

“I wasn’t satisfied yet,” McGuffey said. “I will be satisfied three meetings down the road if this proceeds and doesn’t fizzle out.”

However, Johnston thought the meeting went well.

“I think it went pretty good, it was a real eye opener,” Johnston said. “My biggest frustration is everyone is worried about the threatened bull trout when people’s jobs and livelihoods are on the line.”

An additional meeting was tentatively set for next Thursday at the Superior Ranger Station.