Savage in as new Kootenai National Forest supervisor

Coming from a city of 3 million to a town of 2,688 wasn’t the culture shock one would expect for new Kootenai National Forestry Supervisor Chris Savage.

Coming from a city of 3 million to a town of 2,688 wasn’t the culture shock one would expect for new Kootenai National Forestry Supervisor Chris Savage.

Talking about his three years in Washington D.C. as the assistant director for the watershed, fishery, and aquatic ecology program at the U.S. Forest Service headquarters, Savage — who started his position as supervisor in Libby on June 2 — said it was pretty enlightening to have time in the capital’s corridors before returning to the mountains and rivers with that fresh understanding of forestry politics at the highest level.

“You really get a huge sense of how politics play out there. It was a good experience. You see that things don’t move very quickly and that things take time,” Savage said in his office, which looks out to the forests that he will be overseeing. “Decisions made in Washinton [D.C.] are made in a different environment – the authority is at a much higher level. And a lot of what goes on there is reviewed with the aim to make sure the decision made, is the right decision.”

With his background as a hydrologist in his native Utah as well as Idaho (Savage graduated from Utah State University with a bachelor’s degree in watershed science), Savage said he and his wife, Sue, who is a jeweler who grew up in Bozeman, have always had an affinity for small towns with big wilderness areas around them, and both have enjoyed settling into Libby in the last few weeks and exploring the area.

Savage replaces former supervisor Paul Bradford, who served as supervisor from 2006 until he retired in February. Since then the position has been filled temporarily by deputy supervisor of the Custer and Gallatin National Forests Pam Gardner.

Before Washington D.C., the couple was based on an island in the Tongass National Forest for seven years when he worked as a district ranger. It was an area he described as remote, with incredible fishing in a landscape that was sheer mountains down to sea level.

So in many ways, coming from Washinton D.C. to Lincoln County is less of a shock, and more of a homecoming.

“We were familiar with the county – I worked on the (Idaho) Panhandle for five years – and we knew Libby and knew the area,” Savage said. “A lot of the issues in both areas are similar.”

“(The Koontenai) is a very active forest from a management standpoint,” Savage said, referring to the timber, mineral, and grizzly management programs as well as the wilderness’s recreation, and all the economic promise it has for the county.

 “There is a lot (here) that keeps you busy,” Savage said.  “And I wanted to be on a forest that had that activity.”

A huge part of the challenge for Savage is that 20 percent of his workforce – which is 200 permanent positions and about 100 seasonal positions - will be eligible for retirement in the next five years, and the department already has 15 vacancies from Libby to Troy to Eureka. These positions include an opening for an archaeologist and another for forestry planning, and there are even more positions that have been deferred, Savage said.

It can take six to nine months to fill a position, Savage added. But he added that he was fortunate to have come into a strong workforce and from what he had already seen, staff had been willing to step up and fill in where needed.

Other challenges were just looking at the forest from a new perspective, Savage said.

“It’s looking at ways forests can contribute to the economy. [This is] as the forest is going through that transformation from traditional forest practices to vegetation management projects and forest products, “ Savage said. “It’s ensuring we’re doing our part on the analysis of the two proposed mines, and then making sure those projects are moving forward.”

Roading – which Savage said had been hit by budget cuts – would also require him to “make some hard decisions on which roads we keep open and what to keep closed.”

Lincoln County Commissioner Tony Berget expected that some issues Savage would have to tackle would be access issues, the challenges of a new forest plan, and said that it “wasn’t if, but when the area had a catastrophic fire.”

Savage said there was a catastrophic fire plan in place and $2 million budgeted for such an event. A meeting with the Environmental Protection Agency this week, about asbestos in the forest had also filled him in on the number of agencies – county, state and federal – that would be involved in an emergency situation, Savage said.

Berget noted that it wasn’t all rough seas ahead and that Savage had some pluses to work with, as the Kootenai was the top growing forest in Montana and the agency had some “great staff” to work with.

Regional Forester for the Northern Region Faye Kruegar said in statement that she believed Savage would be a good fit for the Kootenai National Forest and would bring strong personal values of integrity, honesty and accountability to the role.

“[Savage] respects the high interest a community has for its national forest and will use a collaborative approach in guiding the Kootenai National Forest,’’ Kruegar stated.