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Montana salvage logging reignites national controversy By
Todd Wilkinson
So it is, then, that the history of U.S. national forest management seems to be circling back upon itself, carrying lessons from the past that for some seem hard to learn a second time around. Today, Ortega’s words are
arguably most visible in a legal smoke signal emanating from a federal
courtroom in Missoula, Mont. For the past two years, the issue
has focused on the best means of achieving landscape restoration.
In response to calls from the timber industry to "heal"
the Bitterroot — and to fire-proof it in the future —
by expediting the removal of huge quantities of "salvageable"
wood, the Forest Service initially proposed felling 280 million
board feet of dead and green trees. click
here for a printer-friendly version
Fight over Montana timber goes on and on By
Greg Lakes, editor The tiny Bitterroot Valley town of Darby, Mont., for example, went from three major mills owned by two different companies to one mill that survived the decade only with a sweetheart loan from the state that allowed it to buy its own timber lands, and then only by logging that land with little regard for modern environmental standards. These days, all the old Bitterroot mills are long closed, but Darby is at the center of a renewed battle. There is a rising chorus of voices calling for collaboration on natural resource issues instead of confrontation, but in Darby, it's again industry vs. environmentalists, with the Forest Service caught in the middle. Todd Wilkinson's superb article above reveals Bitterroot Forest officials' attempt to appease opposing forces, as well as the national political agenda that cut it short. And the headlines of the past few months have yielded some hope that traditional confrontations might evolve into more productive exchanges, as well as evidence that perhaps they never will. On Jan. 3, less than a week before U.S. District Judge issued his scathing indictment of the Bitteroot plan, officials on Montana's Flathead National Forest announced they were planning that forest's biggest-ever salvage sale on 4,300 acres burned by fire in the summer of 2001. The public comment period for that project ends Feb. 5, and so far no one has suggested skipping the process and going straight to court, the crux of the judge's criticism of the Bitterroot plan. Still the scope of the sale is a record, with advocates arguing it's merited by the size of the burn and the need to get the wood to mill in a reasonable time, and with critics saying it's the agency's newest excuse to log as much as possible. The need for quicker and cheaper resolutions to forest conflicts is evident to all. Industry has done most of the yielding since the 1980s, and the scars are still raw. But while Forest Service officials blame leftover enmity for stalling less controversial ecological projects, it's not without a little sabotage from the agency itself. In mid-December, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth promised a Boise gathering that he would break the logjam that prevented the agency from doing more to thin stands, close roads and improve the ecological health of the land. He complained that 70 percent of agency funds are spent on process, leaving little for actual projects. The problem, he said, was the bureaucratic and legal hurdles left over from 30 years of policy fights, and he vowed to change burdensome regulations without neutering the environmental laws on which they were based. "We need to focus more on solutions and not trying to jam things down people's throats," said Bosworth, quoted in the Idaho Statesman. Yet, it was Bosworth who asked Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey to sign off on the Bitterroot plan, a move both said would make it immune from administrative appeal. Of course, say the skeptics, Bosworth is simply doing the bidding of the Bush administration, which among other prominent environmental issues, moved to undo Clinton-area restrictions on forest road-building. In the midst of struggling to deal with the Clinton plan to close 58 million acres to new roads and logging, Bush officials overturned a Clinton directive that each forest determine how many miles of forest road it really needs and to protect small undeveloped patches of forest next to roadless areas. Supports said the measure would remove regulatory redundencies and cut some red tape. Critics said it would open huge new areas to logging and exemplified the new administration's attitude. That public comment period will end soon. Collaboration seemed a far-fetched notion in the late 1980s in Darby. These days, the mills stand silent and empty, and Main Street has shed its blue-collar image for mock-Western storefronts. But in the Sapphire and Bitterroot ranges that surround it, the same forces have brought the same fight to just about the same conclusion. |
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Headwaters News is a project of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana. |
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