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Joint fuel reduction project in Mont. starts after 3-year delay |
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After a three-year delay, national forest land outside Missoula, Mont.,
will be treated to reduce the risk of unnaturally intense wildfires
under an unusual partnership among federal land managers,
environmentalists and loggers.
Starting next week, hundreds of acres in Lolo National Forest's Sawmill
Gulch will be thinned, about half using special environmentally
sensitive equipment.
Overcrowded stands of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and western
larch -- the legacy of more than a century of fire suppression -- pose
a major fire risk, with hundreds of homes nearby.
After catastrophic, tree-top scorching wildfires burned
through the area in the summer of 2003, local members of the Sierra
Club and the Society of American Foresters begin to talk about what
could be done to reduce fuel loads in the forest.
The following year, in collaboration with the Forest Service,
they came up with a plan to thin 754 acres, remove brush in the
understory and keep new growth at bay with prescribed fires.
But a lawsuit over a separate but similar project prompted the
Forest Service to delay implementation of the work at Sawmill Gulch,
out of concern that the lawsuit could result in a legal precedent that
would hamstring the project. It was also stymied by a lack of bids on
the thinning contract.
Not named in suit
The lawsuit is still in the courts, but the Forest Service
decided to move forward with the Sawmill Gulch project because it was
not specifically named in the suit and there was support from both
environmental groups and industry to proceed. Tricon Timber, a local
mill that uses small-diameter wood to make tongue-and-groove flooring,
signed on to take the wood and oversee thinning.
"Private citizens and companies stepped up to make this
project happen," said Matt Arno, a local forester who hatched the idea
with the Sierra Club's Bob Clark when Arno was president of the Montana
chapter of the Society of American Foresters.
The project, which will be conducted over five years, will
reduce the number of trees by up to 50 percent in the treatment area.
All of the mechanical treatments will be within 1,800 feet of
residential property, said Bob Clark of the Sierra Club's Bitterroot
Mission chapter in Missoula.
Thinning to remove the trees -- mostly the spindly,
small-diameter trees that have grown in the absence of fire -- will be
done in the winter, when the ground is frozen, and summer, when the
ground is dry, to minimize impacts, said Steve Clark, a Forest Service
timber management staffer. Tricon Timber has agreed not to remove trees
larger than 21 inches in diameter, he said.
About 98 acres of the project will be thinned using a special,
low-impact logging machine that cuts a tree at its base, then shears
off the limbs and crown, and hauls out the logs. Another 80 acres of
the project area will be thinned using traditional "whole-tree
yarding," involving heavy skidder equipment, the Forest Service's Clark
said. The rest will be hand-thinned by crews on foot, due to the
inaccessibility of those tracts, he added.
Bob Clark of the Sierra Club said he is happy with the
project's design and hopes the process behind it can be a model for
other communities facing the daunting task of clearing fuels in the
wildland-urban interface, where forest meets city.
"It exemplifies common ground between nontraditional partners on natural resource issues," Clark said.
Arno agreed, adding that the project is better-designed and
"less likely to be appealed" because of the collaboration among
different interests.
"Maybe it's time for people to take a deep breath and start
working together instead of being contrary about it," added the Forest
Service's Steve Clark.
He noted that the project, with its emphasis on reducing
environmental impacts using special logging equipment, would be more
expensive than traditional thinning projects. Bob Clark of the Sierra
Club called it "almost a community service for the contractor" but
believes the added cost is worth it to reduce damage to the forest
floor.
Volunteers have cleared a few acres of brush, but an access
road needs to be stabilized before thinning equipment can be brought
in, Clark of the Forest Service said. The initial 98-acre, low-impact
portion of the project is scheduled to begin within the next few weeks.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 14 November 2007 )
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