Looming threat lies like a dragon just outside our doors

To the Editor:

With all the rhetoric bandied about in the media recently concerning air pollution and global warming, it is dismaying that our state and federal officials have not mentioned a looming threat that lies just beyond the doors of our homes. Like a mythological dragon, this threat will consume vast tracts of land leaving it black, in some cases sterile, hydrophobic. This threat will soil the air we breathe, and will contribute more pollution to fuel global warming in one season than our vehicles. I am speaking of catastrophic wildland fires, and our national forests are ripe for destruction.

In 2000, according to Forest Service's own research, in Region 1, which encompasses all of Montana and Northern Idaho, only 20 percent of the forest was considered healthy. Forty-one percent was listed in declining health, and the remaining 39 percent as very unhealthy. In just this past year, Forest Service officials revealed, mountain pine beetles have infested an additional 1.1 million acres of forest.

How is the Forest Service going to tackle this new problem? According to a recent news release, they plan to thin 500 acres in the Upper St. Joe River area, and treat the lodgepole pine trees near Lookout Ski Pass Area with pheromone treatments at a cost of over $40,000. Will this relieve any of the stress on the remaining one-million-ninety-nine-thousand-five hundred acres of recently infested lands?

With an outbreak like this, what are we facing? According to the Forest Service: During epidemics, widespread tree mortality alters the forest ecosystem. Often beetles have almost totally depleted commercial pine forests…Moreover, the dead trees left after epidemics are a source of fuel that will, in time, burn unless removed.

What are the options for treatment? Whenever possible, natural controls are preferred. As alternatives, we may consider insecticides, which are effective, but as in the case of pheromone treatment, cost prohibitive and impossible to disperse over so large an area.

All that remains is mechanical thinning and removal of infected trees and selective harvesting. Unfortunately, during the past 20 years, little has been accomplished in Montana's forests in spite of the Forest Service's own studies.

When contacted and asked what percentage of the National Forest has received fuels reduction treatment in the past five years, a Forest Service spokesperson for Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest estimated, about 2 percent or 6,000 acres a year, and much of that is grassland.

In Flathead County, it is estimated that a total of 6,000 acres have been treated in the past 5 years. Most of these fuel reduction projects are self-supporting as timber removed in the process pays for the treatment.

Where does that leave the residents of Montana? Sitting on a powder keg waiting for the application of a match.

In 2003, residents of the Flathead suffered through air pollution so bad, that even healthy individuals were advised to remain indoors. Those unfortunate enough to suffer respiratory problems were virtual prisoners in their homes, and even that was a futile effort because the smoke particles were too small to be kept out of their homes. Any residents with chronic respiratory problems who suffered through July, August and September of 2003 will remember the aggravation of their symptoms.

While not advocating a return to the days of White Pine: King of Many Waters or clearcuts, the citizens of Montana cannot allow environmental obstructionist legal challenges to prevent reasonable mediation of wildfire hazards on areas of our national forests including inventoried roadless areas.

The management policies of the past two decades, environmental obstructionist lawsuits, and the addition of the roadless rule label in the past five years have all but locked up our national forests to any effective manipulation of the biomass threat. Without immediate relief, it is only a matter of time until the citizens of our state will face more wildfires, more air pollution and more public health risks.

There is no guesswork involved here. Even the national forest personnel agree: It will happen!

It is time to demand that our government officials take aggressive action on our behalf to protect public health. Contact your local, state and national leaders today.

Either we muzzle the dragon, or we accept its wrath.

Richard Funk

Kalispell