State timber sale plans moving ahead

Public concerned about impacts to viewsheds, water quality in Whitefish Lake and folf course

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

More than a year after the state proposed a timber sale on land near Whitefish Lake, the state has released a newsletter updating its Beaver-Swift-Skyles project.

An interdisciplinary team from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation's Kalispell and Stillwater units is expected to complete an environmental assessment on the project this fall. A decision could then be made this fall or winter.

DNRC planners have met with the public and various stakeholders since the initial proposal was sent out in July 2007. They've also conducted field tours, reviewed comments, found additional dying trees and re-evaluated the project.

Currently, the project calls for harvesting 5 million board feet across 980 acres in three areas:

? About one-third of a section located half a mile above the west shore of Whitefish Lake, northeast of Dollar Lake, and a smaller parcel between Murray and Dollar lakes.

? Nearly half a section near the northwest shore of Skyles Lake.

? At the north end of Whitefish Lake, about an eighth of a section adjacent to the northeast shore of Smith Lake and about a dozen smaller parcels east of the first mile-and-a-half of the Upper Whitefish Lake Road.

The purpose of the timber project is to generate money for the state's schools, as mandated by the Montana Constitution, and to target insect and disease infestations. Larch dwarf mistletoe, Douglas-fir beetles, Armillaris root disease and fir engraver are present in the area, DNRC says.

"Even if this current proposal were implemented, several stands would continue to be at high risk for insect infestations," DNRC says. "However, salvage timber sales would continue to take place."

Public concerns have been raised about aesthetics and viewsheds, water quality, recreation misuse at Murray Lake, improvements to West Smith Lake Road, the future of an unauthorized folf course near Smith Lake, and the proposed A Trail Runs Through It recreational trail project.

Whitefish resident Charlie Abell, who owns a home on the east shore of Whitefish Lake and is a member of a Whitefish Chamber of Commerce committee keeping an eye on the DNRC proposal, told chamber members of his concerns in a letter last week.

"Having been part of the 'stakeholders' a few years back in trying to preclude the DNRC from selling the 13,000 acres around Whitefish," he said, referring to school trust lands that eventually became part of a neighborhood plan, "it became apparent that we citizens who care about Whitefish's future take a significantly different position on the issue than the state."

The economic vitality of the Whitefish community "is based on the attractiveness of our area," he said. Whitefish was the fastest growing community in Montana between 2000 and 2007 because of "the recreational opportunity it provides, its ambiance and viewsheds," he said.

DNRC manages 120-130 sections of land around Whitefish, Abell said, but interspersed within that land is 23 sections of Plum Creek land "that is or soon will be sold and developed."

Abell suggested the money made for schools by harvesting timber will be less than the revenue lost to Whitefish district schools as properties on Whitefish Lake's east shore lose value because of impacts to viewsheds.

He also claimed jobs provided by the project "will be short lived," and he wondered how future generations will regard "our short-sightedness, the quick dollar syndrome and our lack of foresight."

Aesthetic issues are not easy to manage, DNRC says in its newsletter, pointing out that "beauty for one person is not necessarily beauty for another." Mitigation strategies could include leaving additional trees and vegetation for screening along open roads, increasing the variability of trees left in harvest areas, and cleaning up landings and roadside areas.

As for water quality concerns, DNRC calls for limiting the amount of timber harvest in the Swift Creek drainage and using best-management practices at all road-crossings used to access timber.

Concerns about litter, bonfires and off-road motorized use around Murray Lake is "beyond the scope of this analysis," DNRC says. The agency is working with Ken Deeds, a representative of folf users, to create a legitimate disc golf course at either Smith or Beaver lakes. He can be contacted at kendeeds@montanasky.net.

Mitigation strategies to protect the A Trail Runs Through It project could include limiting logging activity to winter time, minimizing the number of skidder trails near the trail, designing harvest plans before finalizing trail plans, and utilizing a temporary road as part of the trail system.

For more information on the state's Beaver-Swift-Skyles timber project, call 881-2371, e-mail Mike McMahon at mmcmahon@mt.gov or mail an inquiry to Stillwater State Forest, P.O. Box 164, Olney MT 59927.