Tester's bill may not be the answer

Letter to the Editor,

In Tuesday morning’s The Western News there is a letter to the editor by the The Three Rivers Challenge Partnership. The letter supports Sen. Tester’s Forest Jobs and  Recreation Act. The group likes more wilderness and the proposed 3,000 acres a  year of timber harvest that would be allowed. 

In 1988, the Kootenai National Forest regenerated over 7,300 acres and harvested timber on 14,938 acres. The volume harvested was more than 248 million board feet. Under Tester’s Act, the  Forest would log about 30 million board feet a year in the KNF, probably considerably less than that. 

Today, the forests are falling apart, the timber industry is all but gone from Lincoln County, and the Kootenai National Forest harvests only 48 million board feet annually, not all of that in saw logs. Is Tester’s bill really  what this area needs?  

The bill does nothing for the timber industry, or the health of the national forests, throughout  Montana. But, the preservationists love it.

—  Jim Rathbun

Former KNF Supervisor