Flathead to start forest plan revision this year

In 1986, the Flathead National Forest wrote a forest plan — a “zoning document” that has guided forest management in the Flathead for nearly 30 years. It’s been amended 24 times and challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — the court declined to hear the appeal.

Now this year, the Forest will begin the process of revising and rewriting that plan, a process that even Forest Service officials note is long overdue.

It’s not that the Forest Service hasn’t tried to rewrite the plan in previous years — it has. But attempts over the past 10-plus years have either been challenged in federal courts or changed by incoming and outgoing presidential administrations. The net result has been plans that were started, sometimes even written, but which never made it past draft form. The last document, a draft land management plan, was completed in 2005.

This time, the rewrite will lean heavily on a collaborative process, planners said last week. The Forest has hired the Meridian Institute to oversee meetings and bring stakeholders together, Forest planner Rob Carlin said during a public meeting on the plan last week in Kalispell

The Forest will hold meetings this fall to gauge public opinion on what changes need to be made. A draft environmental impact statement will likely come out in 2015, and the hope is to have a plan finalized by 2016, Carlin noted.

Attending last week’s meeting were motorized use advocates, loggers, timber representatives, mountain bikers and politicians. Noticeably absent were any environmental groups or wilderness advocates.

But wilderness is most certainly one of the key aspects to the next plan. Advocates for years have sought a wilderness designation for northern Whitefish Range.

Meanwhile, motorized use advocates say they’ve seen a steady decline in their ability to use the Forest, and they’re worried they’ll lose what access they have. Dozens of roads have been closed over the years to protect grizzly bears, ungulates or watersheds.

Grizzly bears will also play into the mix. The plan will incorporate the recently released Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear conservation strategy, which guides grizzly management after the bears have been delisted under the Endangered Species Act.

Timber advocates noted the Forest Service, even under the 1986 plan, hasn’t come close to meeting its timber harvest goals. Those goals are set at about 54 million board feet of timber per year. Presently, about 27 million board feet is harvested per year.

Lawsuits from environmental groups have often stymied timber sales over the years. With timber sales, come the access issues.

Ron Buentemeier, a retired general manager for Stoltze Land and Lumber Co., has heard plenty of arguments for Forest access over the years. He said it all boils down to one thing — cutting trees.

“The only (projects) that are litigated are the ones that cut a tree … that’s the lightning rod,” he said. “Unless you cut a tree, you’re not going to manage the Forest.”

Forest planners are hoping the collaborative process will bring all parties to the table and reduce lawsuits.

But there is plenty of skepticism. Many members of last week’s meeting suggested modifying the Equal Access to Justice Act, perhaps to tighten the rules on natural resource lawsuits. As it stands now, legal costs of litigants who prevail against the Forest Service are covered by the federal government.

The act was designed to help the average person without financial means to sue the government for being treated unjustly, but multiple use advocates claim environmental groups are abusing the system.

Changing the law, however, is a tough sell in Congress. Joe Krueger, the team leader in the Forest plan rewrite, noted the Flathead has won most of its lawsuits.

But successful or not, litigation is still expensive and it delays projects — sometimes for months, often for years.

The idea of amending the act has not fallen on deaf ears, however. Republican Rep. Steve Daines, in a visit to the F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. mill earlier this year, suggested just that.