October 1, 2009
Senator Jon Tester
130 West Front Street
Missoula, Montana 59802
Re: Comments on the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009
Dear Senator Tester,
Friends of the Bitterroot (FOB) is a grassroots conservation organization founded in 1988 and based in western Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. We have over 700 members, most of whom live, work and recreate in western Montana. We are all-volunteer and have no staff. We have been active for over 20 years in conservation efforts in the Northern Rockies with a special focus on the National Forest lands in the Bitterroot, Big Hole, West Pioneers, Rock Creek and adjacent Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho. For present purposes, we will bring your attention to some work we have done in the Big Hole area of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest (B-DNF).
We have invested thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars in protecting the National Forest watersheds and roadless wildlands in the Big Hole area, not to mention the personal attachment we have to this area that is our backyard. In the early 1990s we won legal decisions protecting wildlands, biological corridors and watersheds in the Trail Creek and Bender-Retie project areas. We were co-litigants in the ten year long Montana Wilderness Study Act (WSA) lawsuit which resulted in some legal handholds to protect Montana’s WSAs. One of our Steering Committee members, Clif Merritt, authored Senator Metcalf’s Montana Wilderness Study Act. Over the years we have carried out numerous ORV monitoring hikes as well as snowmobile monitoring ski trips and over-flights in the West Pioneer WSA. We are presently engaged in litigation over a controversial permit for snowmobile trail grooming in the West Pioneer WSA, that was excluded from public notice, comment and review, and which threatens wolverine denning habitat.
In spite of our steadfast conservation work in the area we were excluded from participation in the “Partnership” regarding the B-DNF. Neither were we informed of or invited to participate in the drafting of your Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. At our initiative, after hearing the announcement of your introduction of the proposed Bill at a sawmill on July 17, 2009, we called your Missoula Field Director to ask if we might have a chance to represent our interests that had not been considered thus far.
Nine members of FOB met with your Field Director, Tracy Stone-Manning, on September 10, 2009 to discuss our concerns about your Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009. This was our first opportunity to be included in your legislation that would directly affect our interests, and the huge investment of time, energy and funds, in protecting the above-named areas. Furthermore, in drafting the bill, the opportunity to benefit from our direct familiarity with this region, our years of experience, and our considerable and relevant expertise was missed. We were told that no changes would be made to the already introduced Bill until after it receives a Congressional hearing. We are extremely disappointed in this and are concerned that our suggestions for improving the Bill will not be included in any meaningful way, especially at that advanced stage of the legislative process. However, since at the conclusion of this meeting we were asked to submit our requests for changes in the Bill, and in the hopes that you will recognize the value of including our perspectives, we will be happy to do so. We hope our input will carry as much weight as the groups who were included in the initial crafting of your Bill.
1. We heartily support the protection offered the B-DNF portion of the Sapphire WSA and all other proposed Wilderness designations in the Bill. We do not support the exceptions in your Bill that are counter to traditional Wilderness management. Elimination of these exceptions would not be onerous to the parties affected, as demonstrated in other Wilderness areas where these exceptions do not exist.
2. We strongly advocate that the Bill include Wilderness designation of both the West Pioneer WSA and the West Big Hole IRA, in addition to the Sapphire WSA. The West Big Hole IRA is an important biological corridor, connecting the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems, and Wilderness protection would keep it intact in the future. The West Pioneers offer critical wildlife habitat for certain rare and endangered species, particularly wolverine, that are sensitive to displacement by motorized vehicles. These animals are quite vulnerable during winter when they den and nurture their young in areas that are attractive to snowmobile use. In a March 3, 2008 letter to the Travel Management Planning Team for the Bitterroot National Forest, Mack Long, Regional Supervisor, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Region 2, Missoula, Montana, wrote the following: “Snowmobiles pose a particular threat because of the increasing popularity of “high marking” in high elevation cirques and drainage heads, used by denning female wolverine.” With Long’s opinion in mind, it is very likely that snowmobile use in the West Pioneer WSA poses a substantial risk to denning female wolverines. It could well threaten that particular population with extirpation, a violation of the National Forest Management Act (Public Law 94-588. October 22, 1976, Sec 6 (g) (3) (B), provide diversity of plant and animal communities....). This type of displacement is much more problematic than displacement from forage habitat, which can be abandoned and then reoccupied when the disturbance recedes. It is especially disheartening to see the existence of this magnificent, rare creature put at risk by frivolous recreation that could easily find another venue. Wolverines are up against extinction, and will likely be listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act next year. By allowing snowmobile intrusions into their winter denning habitat, your Bill directly threatens the survival of the wolverine.
An additional argument for advocating Wilderness designation/protection to the proposed areas is assuring the sustainability and integrity of our nation’s critical watersheds. This should be the very basic tenet of any forest management decision. Historically, it was the first charge of the agency and continues to be so. Recently U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack suggested, “Conserving our forests is not a luxury”, but a necessity. He stressed the importance of forests and rural lands in supplying much of America’s clean drinking water, sheltering wildlife and helping to mitigate climate change. The high elevation watersheds of the B-DNF are some of the most important and critical watersheds in the Northern Rocky Mountains.
3. We request a delineation of existing Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) with a unique color on the map that will accompany the Bill. The failure to do so has already caused much anxiety and, possibly, confusion about whether or not IRAs would be released to some sort of management different from what will eventually be given to IRAs in general by the Roadless Rule. We see no reason not to do this simple adjustment that would, now and in the future, eliminate any ambiguity and avoid possible mistaken impressions about the intent of this Bill.
4. The proposal to mandate logging levels is unprecedented, and usurps the authority of the USFS. We are opposed to such mandates, especially while not also mandating restoration levels or timelines. Historically, despite the protections afforded under NEPA, the timber cut provisions are implemented while the restoration is never accomplished. For example, the Huck Trap NEPA Decision here on the Bitterroot even went so far as to explicitly state the logging would not go forward until the funds for restoration were in hand and yet the logging was done and the restoration was not.
More recently, regarding the Burned Area Recovery project on the Bitterroot NF, we reached a federal District Court sanctioned settlement with representatives of the timber industry, Forest Service representatives, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey and Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth (who both personally participated) which allowed for 60 million board feet of logging balanced by significant restoration of watersheds. Very soon after that historic settlement, “$25.5 million of th[e] money [that] was intended for the rehabilitation of forests burned in the Bitterroot Valley during the 2000 wildfire season” (Missoulian, 9/7/04) was summarily “transferred”. This restoration money was actually in hand on the BNF, not just pie-in-the-sky hoped for allocation. Much of the restoration was not done even though logging went forward unhindered. If restoration in the Bill is not just window dressing, levels and timelines for restoration need to be mandated as well, to prevent this historical pattern from being repeated by the Forest Service. We request restoration that does not involve haul roads be done simultaneously with logging. Requiring completion of restoration in one Stewardship Area or project area before logging begins in another Stewardship Area or project area would provide a needed mandate to actually keep up with the restoration work.
5. In spite of guidelines that are stated to prioritize logging on areas already heavily impacted by roads (p.16), the requirement that the road density be reduced to 1.5 miles per section at the end of a project (p.18) will do the opposite, given the cost of reclaiming roads. It will serve to focus logging on lands with low road density. Money will trump stated priorities if not specifically regulated. We request a mandated minimum road density for project areas that would preclude the conflict built into the arrangement as it stands, and more surely aim the logging into areas of higher road densities.
6. The Bill states, p. 38-39, “the Secretary concerned shall use the most cost effective means available” in planning and implementing the projects. Assuming this includes the operations on the ground, we are quite concerned that avoidable resource damage will be the result. For example, summer ground skidding may be the cheapest way to get the logs out but usually causes much more soil and watershed damage than other alternatives. We request that the language of the Bill direct the Secretary to specifically take into account possible resource damage when determining most cost effective means, so that decisions are not made which would likely lead to successful court challenges, quite costly in and of themselves.
7. The Bill, p.40, states, “Funds generated by a landscape-scale restoration project under this title in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest may be expended by the Secretary concerned on a landscape-scale restoration project carried out in any other administrative unit of a National Forest.” This seems to say that the B-DNF can be subjected to the unavoidable further degradation of logging while any ‘funds generated’ may be used to do restoration, say, on a coal mine in the Alleghany NF. This sort of resource colonization of Montana should not be allowed; any benefits should remain where the damage will surely stay.
Given the late date at which we were provided an opportunity for input on your Bill, we respectfully request that you respond to the concerns we have presented here in a timely manner. FOB is absolutely committed to the protection of our nation’s last roadless areas. We assume it was a simple oversight that IRAs were not initially delineated on the map provided in the Bill, rather than a signal that the Bill has any intent to weaken protections for IRAs in the region. If release of IRAs is not the intention of the Bill then accommodating this request would not be a change, only a clarification. We are gravely concerned that a failure to do so will result in a misinterpretation and could lead to such a weakening of vital protections for the IRAs. We would much appreciate your immediate reassurance on this matter by agreeing to color code IRAs on your map. Thank you for your attention to our concerns, and we look forward soon to your reply.
Sincerely,
Jim Miller, President