Using nothing of the tree but the shade

From its inception, the United States Forest Service operated under a general guideline of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” It considered itself an agency that nurtured the lands it controlled and the many communities enveloped by the United State’s forests. 

President “Teddy” Roosevelt, who created the Forest Service in the early 1900s, saw benefits in the wise allocation of America’s resources for present and future generations of American people and communities.  

This stewardship model worked well until beginning in the 1990s when political ideologies and court decisions began to sway Forest Service management to one of preservation instead of stewardship of resources. Political campaigns and candidates espousing promises of “protection” and “clean water and air” for Forest Service lands were elected instead of those who promised traditional land uses, such as logging and road building. Environmental dogma came to rule the day in Forest Service land management.  

Has the tradeoff of tens of thousands of unemployed loggers and millworkers in the northwestern U.S. and Forest Service policies and regulations curtailing logging and mining been good for America? Does the fact that the United States has a growing trade imbalance in softwood lumber make sense in our modern economy of perpetual trade deficits? Opinion polls in America’s cities and urban areas definitely say yes. But I feel the untold story has been the effect of Forest Service management on rural communities like Libby and the economic and social dysfunction that follows.  

Presently, the Forest Service operates at the whim of the judicial system refereeing an onslaught of litigation brought on by groups opposed to the Forest Service being in the business of harvesting natural resources. Lacking a clear direction for land stewardship except for anything that fits under its mantra of “ecosystem management,” few opportunities for timber production ever survive the leviathan of agency and collaborator scrutiny, almost certain third-party appeals, and then finally the omnipresent threat of litigation in federal court.

In attempts to bring a happy face to the debate over timber sales and logging, the Forest Service has turned to collaboration as a means to an end. Directives from the national office in Washington, D.C., down through the regional office in Missoula constantly trumpet this new management tool. Bringing all sides together as “stakeholders,” the Forest Service will proceed with a consensus-crafted plan supposedly free from lawsuits. Supposedly, free from the threat of lawsuits. But those who have waded into the waters of collaboration know the realities and limitations of “management by consensus.” I have been on the front lines of several collaborative groups and can personally attest to their limitations.  

The announcement in the summer of 2002 that Stimson Lumber Co., which had operated the plywood plant in Libby since 1993, was in trouble brought me to the collaboration arena.  An approaching log shortage the following year as well as added costs associated with asbestos contamination on its plant site were the two issues in the way of Stimson Lumber maintaining operations in Libby. The 300 remaining jobs at the Libby mill complex were all that was left of the some 1,300 workers that once worked at the site. But Stimson management wanted to try and overcome these obstacles and felt that if the community valued their corporate presence, then maybe solutions could be created locally.  

I showed an interest in the resource side of the crisis, and along with a small group of mill officials, Forest Service personnel, Libby business owners, and members of a local conservation group, we discussed at length how Stimson might be able to find an additional 10 million to 15 million board feet of timber needed to adequately run the plywood plant. It was in this setting where I learned of the immense difficulty and hardship it is for the Forest Service to operate their timber program. The Forest supervisor led us through the process of understanding the Kootenai National Forest’s timber program and how it would be next to impossible to increase the harvest of material needed to keep the mill going. Budgets, both for timber sale prep and the required analysis, were tight and would have to be increased for another timber sale prep team.      

Finally, he came up with the idea that perhaps around the towns in Lincoln County, the Forest Service could log in the WUI, or “wildland urban interface,” and perhaps find the needed volume of timber for Stimson. Since the WUI is close to towns needing fire protection, his thought was that this would probably be the best place for all groups to agree on a source for timber. By now, the stakeholders were resigned that because of the stringent realities associated with the Forest Service’s timber program, this would be the only possible chance at finding a solution, albeit a temporary one as the WUI lands were not extensive. However, once the group got to this point, immediately the local conservation group at the table demanded they would not agree to any timber being cut unless it was less than 21 inches in diameter and trees could not come from any areas they deemed “sensitive.” Evidently, the conservation group cared more for their group’s “preservationist ideology” than helping preserve the last of Libby’s timber industry.  

I remember feeling at the time that this just didn’t feel like a solution the Stimson folks would find confidence in. Yes, the Forest Service was trying to find added volume, but not having the funding to do so and the local environmental group’s cold-water endorsement of the possible added volume made me wonder if it would work. In my way of thinking, it wasn’t a solution that would pencil out for any type of company buy-in.  

In the end, Stimson announced they would not continue operations in Libby and they were gone by 2003. Both issues dealing with timber availability and asbestos contamination were deal breakers. Libby was the victim of a civil-lawsuit culture in regards to the presence of asbestos contamination – through absolutely no fault of Stimson – and lack of a coherent timber program from the Forest Service.

This was one of those watershed moments for me where I learned that collaboration in the timber arena was not an even playing field. Here, myself and others in the room were trying to protect 300 jobs in a community in crisis, while other “stakeholders” were more interested in managing local forests and entrenching their environmental creed for an agency fully qualified to do so.  

Several years later, I was asked to join the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition to bring consensus and collaboration to the local forest scene. I was skeptical because of my experience on the Stimson timber taskforce, but nonetheless joined and decided to see if we could bring some additional timber harvesting about on the Kootenai.  

We had professional facilitators lead several of the early meetings to develop mission statements and vision plans. After several years, I was elected chairman of the group.

But, again, trying to get results at the table of collaboration is much easier said than done.  While there were several early successes with a couple of projects approved and implemented in the WUI, moving beyond and into the forest proved too much for agreement to be found.  

One project in the Flower Creek drainage was planned as a way to treat Libby’s municipal water supply watershed from possible catastrophic fire. Lands in the drainage belonging to the Montana Department of State Lands (DNRC) and Plum Creek Timber Company were agreed and acted upon early. However, Forest Service lands in the drainage hit a roadblock when one conservation group demanded that the Forest Service designate 25 percent of the land as old-growth forest. This designation, far and above the Forest Service’s own requirements, meant that stakeholder approval would supersede agency rules and guidelines and would severely hinder treatment of the Forest Service lands. Not being able to overcome the stalemate, stakeholder collaboration ended. But, the watershed is still overstocked with trees and the threat of wildfire damage to our municipal water supply still exists.   

Another attempted project in the upper Yaak was Young-Dodge timber sale. First proposed to the stakeholders in 2007, the Forest Service brought this to the group to see if this would be a project, away from the WUI, that the group could agree on. But this project, after six years, has been appealed twice and is now under litigation, filed last month in Federal District Court in Missoula by a coalition of environmental groups not even involved in the collaboration process.  The lesson to be learned by this experience is that no matter how hard members of a stakeholder group work to find “common ground,” projects can and do get appealed by conservation groups not involved at the local level.  

Two years ago I volunteered to help the owner of the mothballed boiler at the Lincoln County Port Authority attempt to get it operating again. The boiler would power a steam turbine and generate five megawatts of electricity for sale to a Montana electrical co-op. My task was to identify sources of wood waste that would fuel the boiler – up to 300 tons daily which equates to roughly 10 truckloads. 

We visited the mill in Moyie Springs and other Idaho Forest Group operations, Chapel Cedar in Troy, Luck-E-G post mill in Libby, Montana DNRC, Plum Creek Timber Company and the Forest Service. We tallied projected volumes of available boiler fuel and gathered samples of wood residue for burn analysis by engineering firms.  

Finally, after incorporating all data into the feasibility study, the Montana co-op rejected the proposal because of their dubious view of wood supply feeding the boiler. Evidently, even though all projections pointed to a surplus of ground waste material, available at competitive rates, the co-op would not allow the material from Forest Service sources to be counted.  Because of the litigious culture surrounding the United States Forest Service timber program, the needed steady and dependable waste wood flow for the Libby boiler project could not count any material from federal lands.  

Jim Hurst, until 2005 owner of Owens and Hurst Lumber Company in Eureka, also paints a telling picture of the collaborative world. Almost wholly dependent on timber form Forest Service lands, his mill, built in 1945, was struggling to find adequate timber in the face of the declining harvests on the Kootenai. 

Seeing an opportunity for spreading its environmental beliefs, the Yaak Valley Forest Council approached Jim Hurst with a craftily drawn Memorandum of Understanding saying they would help keep the Owens and Hurst Mill operating if Jim Hurst and the Lincoln County commissioners would sign the document. A five-point plan was put forward by the group in the MOU:

• To treat the frontcountry of overstocked material in appropriate places;

• To sustain a local logging culture, tradition, and expertise for the implementation of such treatment;

• To support the existing infrastructure and future need for firefighting crews in Lincoln County;

• To maintain the economic component of a wood processing facility in Lincoln County;

• To protect as wilderness the backcountry, best typified in the Yaak by those last 15 roadless areas, most of which possess little if any timber value.  

Notice the first point, the one evidently dealing with timber supply. There are four qualifiers included that would preclude any timber management happening, unless the Yaak Valley Forest Council agreed.  

1. What does “treat” mean?  It would make their group squirm to say “logging.”  

2. Where is the “frontcountry?”  As I explained in my Stimson example, it would only be the WUI and not areas away from communities or roads the Yaak Valley Forest Council would deem off limits.

3. Evidently, only areas that are “overstocked” could be logged.  Guess who would determine what overstocked means?

4. And finally, if the first three qualifiers are met, then the lands would have to be in “appropriate” places.  Again, guess who would determine appropriate places?

The Yaak Valley Forest Council crafted this MOU with hopes of creating a “grand bargain” and striking a deal benefiting both the mill and their group. There was room for eight signatures on the document – none of the names represented by the Forest Service.  

Not only did Jim Hurst find it impossible to abide by the above-mentioned MOU with the Yaak Valley Forest Council, but his trust with them was soon severely broken. Three months later, in the Los Angeles Times, a member of the Yaak Valley Forest Council wrote an op-ed piece describing his views on the forest situation in Montana. In it, Rick Bass lamented on how the sawmill industry was “stripping away our environmental treasures.” “The timber industry in Montana, in particular, has gained one concession after another.” “What more can an environmentalist give? Always more, it seems, until there is no wilderness left.”  

He signed off by saying, “Californian’s should care about what may happen in the Kootenai and Flathead National Forests….”  

Rick Bass and the Yaak Valley Forest Council “collaborated” locally and said they wanted to help provide timber for the last surviving mill in Lincoln County, but then spread a different kind of message to the human masses outside who didn’t care about sawmills needing logs.  Collaborate locally, but spread indignation nationally. Who in California would care whether Jim Hurst kept his mill open or not?   

Three months later, Jim Hurst announced his mill was out of logs and would close in 2004.  

Years ago, I was made aware of the contradiction of ideals between communities and bureaucracies. A community is based on shared values and principles. A bureaucracy is based on policies and procedures. In the Libby of yester-year, our town shared and understood the value of a strong tie between land and community. Take care of the land, and it will take care of you. I’ll call it the principle of land stewardship.  

Today, the 70 percent of Lincoln County land governed by the Forest Service, a bureaucracy, is governed wholly by a rigid and unbending set of rules and regulations. Such a large amount of land managed by fiat with little or no local control or expertise gained during the past 100-plus years is detrimental to the forests and our communities.  

In fairness, I need to state that not all actions taken on the land surrounding Libby over the past 121 years have been in line with what I would call stewardship principles. Whether it being private, federal, state or corporate ownership, mistakes have been made in regards to what are best management policies.  

But because we are a world community of human beings, fallible in nature, mistakes will always be made. The answer is not to make the land off limits by enacting an impassable tangle of rules and regulations, formed by preservationist ideology appealing to the national electorate. To say we will remain inactive in an effort to avoid repeating past mistakes is to take away the promises of human thought and reason.

Next week, I will discuss possible solutions to Libby’s economic despondency.  

 (This is the fourth of a five-part series of columns by Jeff Gruber analyzing the economic challenges facing Libby.)