State Proposes Huge Timber Sale in Old-Growth Forest

[November 2006] The largest timber sale on State lands in recent history (perhaps ever) has been proposed for old-growth habitat in the Swan River State Forest.  The Three Creeks sale proposes to cut up to 26 million board feet.  That is almost half the amount of old growth that the State is supposed to cut each year from more than 700,000 acres of State forest lands scattered across Montana.  The draft environmental impact statement for the sale actually states that there is too much old growth in the area, and that the amount needs to be reduced.  The data provided to justify that conclusion are incomplete and inaccurate.

The sale, and the justification for it offered by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, are both alarming.  The fact of the proposal makes it clear that environmentalists have been right to be concerned about increased harvest requirements for State forests enacted during the Martz Administration.

In 2004, DNRC claimed that it could increase the timber harvest on State school trust lands by 26% and not impact old-growth forests.  Many environmentalists, including MEIC and the Montana Old Growth Project, raised red flags.  But State Land Board members, in a decision made two weeks before they were up for re-election, sided with DNRC, and allowed the annual harvest on these lands to be raised to 53 million board feet.

One of DNRC’s circular justifications for the size of the Three Creeks sale is the increased annual harvest requirement.  But DNRC should not be using the harvest requirement to justify increasing the size of timber sales.  Instead it should be following its recently developed rules for managing forest lands in a sustainable manner.

For many years MEIC and other groups had advocated the development of just such rules for the management of old-growth forests on State school trust lands.  In 2003, after years of debate, the State Land Board adopted some of these rules.  The rules make it clear that old-growth forests are valuable for more than just short-term revenue, and that they should be managed differently than other forest lands to account for the inherent ecological differences.  At last, environmentalists thought, there was an adopted policy that required old-growth forests to be managed for long-term as well as short-term environmental benefit and economic gain.

In the case of the Three Creeks sale, however, instead of following the old-growth management rules, DNRC misrepresented the historical quantities and ecological importance of old growth in the Swan River State Forest.  Much scientific research previously conducted in that forest was ignored.  Instead the EIS was designed to reach the pre-determined outcome of harvesting large quantities of old growth in one of the most ecologically important regions of the state.

Furthermore, DNRC’s analysis assumed that old-growth forest habitat would still be old growth after it is logged.  In 2000 a technical review committee for the State, comprised of top foresters in the region, found that “… producing ’old-growth’ habitats through active management is an untested hypothesis.”  In other words, DNRC is basing its decision to cut large amounts of old growth on a theory that has never been proven. 

In addition to many other flaws, the draft EIS gives short shrift to protection of many species, including bull trout.  For example, DNRC proposes to require only a 25-foot buffer zone for key bull trout spawning streams, without providing any scientific basis for such a narrow buffer.  The Montana Bull Trout Restoration Team’s Science Group suggested a caution zone that ranged from the 100-year floodplain plus 150 feet, to the entire watershed.  The U.S. Forest Service’s Inland Native Fish Strategy requires a 300-foot buffer on each side of a stream.  DNRC is clearly out of step with other agencies and scientists.

This timber sale shows that DNRC is continuing its timber harvesting program regardless of the requirements of the law and administrative rules.  Some of the best old growth in the state, along with the many species that depend upon the habitat it provides, will suffer.  Once again, a “new day” (to use one of Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s favorite phrases) may have dawned, but not much seems to have changed with the sunrise.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

"Promises, promises: Land Board pursues Swan River timber harvest," by George Ochenski, Missoula Independent (posted: 01/24/2008)

Letter that 5 conservation groups sent to the land Board on the Three Creeks timber sale in the Swan River State Forest (December 2007)