Settlement reached in Lolo forest logging suit

By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian

Proclaiming it "a winning formula," environmentalists joined Lolo National Forest Supervisor Debbie Austin Tuesday in announcing a settlement in a lawsuit challenging the forest's plans for logging land burned during the summer of 2000.

The solution: dropping all plans to log trees burned in parts of the forest where there are no roads.

Instead, the Lolo will spend its post-fire funds on the rehabilitation or obliteration of more than 500 miles of existing forest roads in the Superior, Alberton and Ninemile areas.

"I feel real positive about the agreement," Austin said. "The value is pretty much gone from the trees that burned four years ago.

"So it made the most sense to me to get the restoration work done; it's extremely critical work."

As approved by U.S. District Court Judge Don Molloy, the settlement allows 3.3 million board feet of timber-cutting - if foresters can find merchantable wood in the burned areas.

About 4 million board feet of salvage was taken off the Lolo forest before the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Sierra Club filed suit against the post-burn plan and stopped all work more than a year ago.

Originally, Austin approved a salvage plan that included eight timber sales on 4,600 acres of the 74,000 acres burned in August and September 2000. Those sales would have produced 35 million board feet of timber.

But environmentalists could not abide by the amount of salvage logging planned in parts of the Lolo forest where there are no roads, said Bob Clark, a conservation organizer for Missoula Sierra Club.

"Those unroaded areas were going to be lost to logging," he said. "And they are now off the table."

For the Lolo, the time consumed by the lawsuit and its appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals negated the forest's interest in salvage logging.

The wood simply deteriorated in the blackened forest, Austin said.

Still, the supervisor said she is happy about the settlement - and even more so about the conversations that led to the settlement.

"We are sitting down and talking to each other and, more importantly, we are listening to each other," she said. "I really believe we are starting to forge some long-term relationships."

Over the past six months, Austin said, Lolo forest officials have devoted many hours to talking with all the various groups who use or depend upon the national forests.

"And I really see a lot of movement," she said. "It seems that, for whatever reason, people aren't as interested in fighting to win anymore, but are instead working together to come up with common goals and solutions that work for everybody."

"It's a good thing," said Clark. "In the end, the restoration was the most important thing to us all - and we're going to see some pretty good work."

The Lolo forest has $300,000 to commit to restoration work this summer, according to Austin. Up first will be replacement of a temporary bridge over Deer Creek, restoration of Foothills Road in the Ninemile Valley, rehabilitation of roads in the Landowner timber sale, replacement of a culvert in Johnson Creek and many miles of "road decommissioning."

In all, the settlement calls for reconstruction of 287 miles of roads, reclamation of three mines, decommissioning 224 miles of old road; and replacing culverts at 108 stream crossings.

The restoration will continue for five to 10 years, Austin said.

And while the logging was greatly reduced, the restoration will put people to work, said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Austin said she remains concerned about another lawsuit filed against the Lolo by Missoula's Ecology Center, also challenging the post-burn plan.

"I don't want the restoration work to be stopped," she said. "It's the resources that suffer if that happens.

"That's why I am so pleased with the settlement we have with the Alliance and the Sierra Club. That's something we have in common: We want to get these areas into better shape."

"Really, the most positive thing to come out of this is that we really are talking to each other," Austin said. "We are starting to have a much better understanding of each other's concerns and mission - and that's only going to be helpful in the future."

Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com