Foresters, officials boast big plans for Kootenai National Forest

A top-rated multi-agency management program for the Kootenai National Forest is on its way to Washington, D.C., where local officials hope it will receive approval.

“Once it goes to Washington, it’s anybody’s guess, but I think we have a good chance,” said Brian Ressel, soil conservationist at the Eureka U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service field office.

Speaking at an Oct. 20 meeting of the Libby chapter of the Society of American Foresters, Russel said the treatment plan would foster a local partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and the NRCS. Through the Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Program, other entities in the area including Lincoln County, property owners and private companies like Stimson Lumber Company could receive assistance in managing their forestlands.

The project would deliver critical funding to reduce the probability of large scale fires in the area like the 2015 Klatawa Fire.

“What’s exciting to me about this is that I think this is going to be like a template or a roadmap for how we should be working together and doing business in the future,” Russel said.

Nate Gassmann, Libby district ranger, said the southern boundary of the project would be near Bear Creek and the northern edge would be close to Vermiculite Mountain. To the west, the project would extend to the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and would be bordered by the western bank of Lake Koocanusa to the east.

Under the Joint Chiefs program, Gassmann said the Forest Service would link together past and present treatment areas. Bristow, Kootenai River North, Flower Creek, West Fork, Hoodoo, Osprey Landing and the Ripley projects all fall within the bounds of the initiative.

If approved, the Joint Chiefs program would provide much-needed funding for the Ripely and Hoodoo projects, according to Seth Cole, interim vegetation program manager for the Libby ranger district. Forest Service officials can expect to receive $1.2 million through the program for these projects.

“We’ve got a backlog and it keeps building,” Cole said. “It’s really important to emphasize that we're going to get some work done we wouldn’t normally [get to].”

The Ripley Project is located east of Libby and U.S. Highway 2 and includes Swede Mountain and a portion of the Farm to Market corridor. The project interdisciplinary team has proposed vegetation management on 12,400 acres out of the total project area of 29,180 acres. Forest Service officials will focus on forest health issues including insects, disease and hazardous fuel reduction. Restoration activities, including road management, watershed improvements and noxious weed treatments, will also be included in the project.

Forest Service officials have proposed using mastication to reduce the threat of wildfire under the Joint Chiefs Program. Unlike traditional fuel reduction techniques like prescribed burning, mastication does not create fire or smoke. Officials estimate that the cost of mastication would run between $900 and $1,000 per acre, which is comparable or slightly less than other methods of fuel treatment.

Jennifer Nelson, county forester, said that a unique aspect of the Joint Chiefs proposal was that it included a potential collaboration plan for managing forests near the former W.R. Grace vermiculite mine.

The Kootenai Wildland Urban Interface Shared Stewardship would designate a separate planning unit within the national forest that would include 10,000 acres within the Libby Superfund mine site.

The wildland urban interface would bring together officials from the Forest Service, county, Montana DNRC and NRCS. The goal of the project is to increase the pace and scale of forest treatment specifically for wildfire through joint planning and resource sharing.

Under the proposal for the interface, officials would use the revised 2021 Lincoln County Wildfire Protection Plan to create a five-year strategic plan that would prioritize treatment areas in the county. NRCS and county officials would also coordinate with Stimson Lumber to treat the company’s industrial land.

NRCS would also provide forest treatment options to private landowners within the Joint Chiefs area through a project dubbed the Kootenai Forest to River Initiative. Russel said the agency was seeking $1.8 million for their three-year portion of the project and would offer pre-commercial thinning, fuel breaks, woody residue treatment, mastication and weed control. To help secure funding, Russel said the American Forest Foundation had pledged $25,000 to the initiative. Most of this donation would go towards outreach and staff hours, according to Russel.

If the program were to be approved in D.C., Russel said NRCS would send out a series of letters to landowners to explain the treatment services available through the program. The first missive would be written by a fellow property owner whom NRCS staff have yet to select. The second would be an informational pamphlet that would explain the risks of insect and disease outbreaks and wildland fire to forest areas. The third and final effort of the outreach campaign would be a postcard urging landowners to take action.

Following the campaign, Russel said the officials with the DNRC would create management plans for each of the properties. The agencies have given priority to lands in the Flower Creek, Cedar Creek, Granite Creek and Parmenter Creek area. Property north of Libby in the Pipe Creek area would have secondary priority.