Black Ram timber harvest put on hold

The forest supervisor’s letter provided no explanation for his decision.

In a three-sentence letter dated Feb. 18, Chad Benson, supervisor for the Kootenai National Forest, notified people who had commented on the environmental assessment for the proposed Black Ram timber harvest that he had, in effect, put the project on hold.

Benson wrote, “This is to notify you that I am cancelling the objection process for the Black Ram Environmental Assessment and Draft Decision Notice.”

He wrote that he will reinitiate the objection process at a later date.

Although Benson did not explain his decision, at least one environmental group that has previously sued the Kootenai National Forest over the potential impacts of forest roads on grizzly bears believes lingering questions about ineffective road closures prodded the cancellation.

“In a nutshell, the federal district court ruled that the Forest Service road closures were ineffective to protect the declining population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem and until the agency remedies the problem, no new road building can occur,” said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

“The Forest Service contended that if it puts a berm on an existing road it’s considered effectively closed to motorized traffic,” Garrity said. “We showed the court that people were driving not only on the supposedly closed roads but also on illegal roads in grizzly bear habitat.”

The 95,000-acre Black Ram project would be located north and west of Troy. As proposed, it would include commercial timber harvests on more than 4,000 acres, construction of more than three miles of new roads, prescribed burns, intermediate harvests in old growth, completion of fuel breaks in one location, new recreational trails, more than 2,000 acres of “regeneration harvests” and more.

Regeneration harvests essentially remove existing trees in a stand and start over to, in theory, create a healthier stand.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies had previously sued the Kootenai National Forest about the potential impact of roads on grizzlies of the Pilgrim Creek Timber Sale. The nonprofit presented evidence that showed people were ignoring berms and other barriers designed to prevent use of closed Forest Service roads.

Ultimately, U.S District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled in early October for the environmental group.

“The court ruled in our favor last October and ordered the Forest Service to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on their ineffective road closures in the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear habitat where the proposed Black Ram project is located and that’s what the agency has to do,” Garrity said.

He said this consultation must occur before any final decision can be issued on the Black Ram project.

Yet State Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Libby, said he believes Benson’s decision to cancel the objection process is tied more to prioritizing staff and resources than to litigation about the Pilgrim Creek project.

“It’s my understanding that they’re not stopping the project,” Gunderson said.

Benson did not respond to requests for comment.

Gunderson said the goal of Alliance for the Wild Rockies, based in Helena, and other “out of the area, special interest groups” is to stall or stop timber projects and eliminate access to portions of the Kootenai National Forest.

Gunderson noted that national forests are supposed to be managed for multiple uses and multiple users.

“We’ve gone from multiple use to grizzly use,” he said. “We’ve given and given on access until we don’t have a lot of access left.

“There are quite a few people who don’t have a sense of humor about those gates,” Gunderson said.

During a Feb. 26 and 27 meeting in Libby of the Governor’s Grizzly Bear Advisory Committee, Wayne Kasworm, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the council that estimates suggest there are between 50 and 60 grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem.

The growth of the population has been bolstered by “augmentation,” with grizzlies relocated to the Cabinet-Yaak from other recovery zones for the threatened species. Still, Kasworm said it is inaccurate to characterize the regional population of bears as “declining.”

The recovery target in the Cabinet-Yaak is 100 grizzlies.

Gunderson said he believes that number is arbitrary and that he and others feel it’s time to describe the regional population of bears as recovered.

A regional environmental group, the Yaak Valley Forest Council, has also raised concerns about the Black Ram project.

In December, Benson had declared in a draft decision that the Black Ram project did not require an environmental impact statement.

The Yaak council disagreed and called for a more thorough analysis.

Its objection was based partly on the Forest Service’s acknowledgement that the project “is likely to adversely affect grizzly bears.”

The council and others have described the population of grizzlies in the Yaak as especially vulnerable to road building, timber cutting and other human-driven intrusion into their core habitat.

The Forest Service says the Black Ram project’s focus “is to manage the forest stands in the project area to maintain or improve their resilience to disturbances such as drought, insect and disease outbreaks and wildfires.”

It suggests that activities tied to the Black Ram project “may result in short-term adverse effects to grizzly bears” and “temporary disturbance and avoidance of the affected areas” by grizzlies.”

Kasworm weighed in on the issue of roads in grizzly habitat.

“Roads themselves are not necessarily the issue, rather the people that travel on or use those roads particularly through use of motorized vehicles,” he said. “Motorized access can result in mortality to bears when the people that use those roads choose to unnecessarily kill bears.”

Kasworm said many of the recent mortalities on the National Forest system have occurred close to roads.

“However, we also have mortality occurring in backcountry areas,” he said. “This past year we had an adult female killed within the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.”

Kasworm said high levels of motorized access can displace bears.

“Often this is a short-term and short-distance effect, but if there is a high density of roads and high levels of use, the displacement effect can be greater and cause greater impacts to bear use of an area,” he said.