Forest plan delayed until October

A final plan for the Flathead National Forest will be delayed a couple more months. The final record of decision will now likely come out in mid-October Forest Planner Joe Krueger said last week.

Krueger said the delay was simply a case of scheduling with the Forest Service’s Washington, D.C. offices for a final review of the document.

“It’s hard to get everyone in the same room,” he said. “It really is just scheduling.”

The plan has been about five years in the making, with field trips, and a host of collaborative meetings along the way. The Flathead is a complex Forest because of the number of endangered species in its waters and in its woods. It also has a mix of designated wilderness, timber and multiple-use lands.

Last summer, the Forest released an draft environmental impact statement that included four alternatives, including a no action alternative that keeps the status quo in place from a plan that was crafted in 1986.

The other alternatives make various adjustments to recommended wilderness and timber harvests — the two hot topics in the Flathead. One alternative would increase recommended wilderness by more than 500,000 acres, another calls for no new recommended wilderness, but has the highest timber harvest at has the highest timber harvest at just under 30 million board feet annually.

How the final plan will handle recommended wilderness and timber remains to be seen.

In addition to addressing the effects of the Flathead National Forest revised forest plan, the final environmental impact statement includes discussion of the environmental consequences of the forest plan amendments to incorporate habitat-related management direction for the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear population on the Helena-Lewis and Clark, Kootenai, and Lolo National Forests.

The final environmental impact statement and draft records of decision will be subject to a pre-decisional administrative review process, commonly referred to as the objection process. The Forest Service’s objection process provides an opportunity to have any unresolved concerns reviewed by the Forest Service prior to a final decision by the responsible official. Objections will be accepted only from those who have previously submitted substantive formal comments during an opportunity for public participation provided during the planning process and attributed to the individual or entity providing them.