County inks deal with Forest Service to increase WUI work

In another attempt to thin forest lands in Lincoln County’s Wildland Urban Interface, county officials recently signed an agreement with the Kootenai National Forest.

Commissioners Brent Teske and Josh Letcher voted to approve the 10-year deal. Commissioner Jim Hammons was not present. 

In a nutshell, the Master Stewardship Agreement opens the door for the county to thin stands of trees on national forest lands adjacent to developed private properties.

District 1 Commissioner Brent Teske talked at length at the Sept. 25 commission meeting about the agreement and it was also presented to U.S. Congressman Ryan Zinke when he visited Libby Oct. 14.

“The county, through the Port Authority, will have the ability to manage Forest Service lands within the WUI,” Teske explained during the Sept. 25 meeting. “It has the potential of driving industry, of additional forestry, but for me, the big thing is public safety. If we can start treating these lands, these valley floors, instead of just letting them rot and burn, it’s gonna be a lot more secure for the public.”

Teske, county Port Authority interim Executive Director Jerry Bennett and Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Chad Benson signed the agreement.

The agreement may also help the county improve its bottom line. According to the Master Stewardship Agreement, the county can receive money from the Forest Service for work it has done.

While it remains to be seen if the deal will create enough forest harvest to sustain a working mill, some officials remain hopeful.

“There’s been interest from the industry and there are companies that are interested in coming here,” Teske said during the Zinke meeting at the Hecla office in Libby. “We set aside an area for the possibility of a fiberboard plant on Port property so it wouldn’t be chopped into a number of smaller businesses.”

Zinke wasn’t sure of the demand for smaller diameter timber, but he is supportive of the agreement.

“I’m 100% in favor of whatever gets it out of the forest,” he said. 

Sen. Mike Cuffe, who represents District 1 in Lincoln County said there’s still interest from Green Diamond and Stimson in bringing large amounts of logs to mills.

“We got the tax rate to the point where these large landowners are still interested,” Cuffe said.

But as many have pointed out over the years, timber industries must have a degree of certainty for a volume of logs before they would commit to building a mill.

Stimson’s plywood mill closed in December 2002. Timber supply and low-priced imports were cited among the reasons for the plant’s demise. In 2005, the mill at the Owens and Hurst Lumber Company in Eureka closed, citing an insufficient amount of logs from the national forest.

According to a 2005 Daily Inter Lake story about the Owens and Hurst closure, the Kootenai National Forest offered annual timber sales of nearly 200 million board feet in the mid-1980s. Before the mill closure, the volume fell to 60 million board feet.

According to KNF officials, the harvest in 2023 was down to about five million board feet.

Zinke asked if this contract brings the harvest beyond five million board feet.

Bruce Vincent, who is on contract with the county as its natural resources consultant, said officials overlayed the county’s Community Protection Fire Plan with the Forest Service plan.

“If each Forest District would do one 3,000-acre project annually, it would be a significant step in protecting our communities,” Vincent said. “No one knows how much board feet it would provide, but our immediate focus has to be making these communities more fire safe.”

The communities include Libby, Troy, Eureka, Yaak, Bull Lake, Happy’s Inn and others.

In an attempt to model their agreement after a similar community, Teske, Vincent, Bennett, Jodi Turk (DNRC Libby), Matt Bienkowski (USFS), Mark Peck and Rich Stem traveled to Tuolumne County, California, to see how their partnership was working.

Peck coordinates the Port Authority’s Shared Stewardship and Stem is a retired Forest Service deputy regional administrator.

The county signed its stewardship pact in 2018 and Vincent said it’s working well. 

“Sierra Pacific has a sawmill there, they have plants for biomass, wood pellets for stoves and even shavings used for animal bedding,” he said. “If we have a steady supply of product, someone will build something here to do something with the product.

“It’s not gonna happen overnight, but our hope is to provide a steady supply,” Vincent said. “If we do that, someone will build something here to do something with the product.”

According to information on its website, Sierra Pacific owns and manages 2.4 million acres of timberland in California, Oregon and Washington and is one of the largest U.S. lumber manufacturers. 

Tuolumne County is home to the Stanislaus National Forest. Officials there started looking for a way to thin their forests following the 2013 Rim Fire, which burned more than 257,000 acres in Yosemite National Park and private timberlands. 

It was caused by an illegal camp fire and it caused nearly $128 million in damages while destroying more than 100 structures. 

    Bruce Vincent, Lincoln County Commissioner Brent Teske and state Sen. Mike Cuffe talk during a meeting Oct. 14, 2024, about the county's agreement with Kootenai National Forest for a Master Stewardship Agreement. (Paul Sievers/The Western News)