editor's note: here's the next episode in a court mandated settlement agreement in 2002 between the BNF and a coalition of environmental groups including FOB over the BAR (Burned Area Recovery) timber sale in the aftermath of the fires of 2000. Click here (make the "here" a quick link to BAR Court Settlement page) for earlier episodes. See the complete story at:
http://www.ravallirepublic.com/articles/2008/03/27/news/news02.txt
Thursday, March 27, 2008
FROM THE ARCHIVES (excerpts)
Bitterroot receives funds for restoration work
by PERRY BACKUS - Ravalli Republic
The Bitterroot National Forest will use $530,000 in one-time funding to do some much needed roadwork left over from the massive wildfires of 2000................
Following a contentious lawsuit by seven conservation groups that challenged the amount of salvage logging proposed by the Forest Service, the agency agreed in a 2002 settlement to a list of restoration projects and a significant reduction in the scale of salvage logging.
The work was to include stream restoration and fish habitat improvements, replacing culverts to improve fish passage, obliteration of roads and improvements to others to prevent sedimentation of streams.
The Bitterroot forest received about $30 million in 2002 that was supposed to begin paying for the restoration work.
After large fires erupted around the West that same summer, the agency took away $26 million of that to help pay for fire fighting efforts.
The next year, the Bitterroot forest lost even more funding to pay for wildfire suppression after the agency transferred $2 million of the $7 million allocated to it for restoration work.
“Those monies were just gone,” said Sue Heald, the Bitterroot Forest’s planning and recreation staff officer. “They never were replenished.” ..........................