Blue Alder Timber Sale

Collaborative Process?

     A couple of years ago Kootenai Environmental Alliance decided not to participate in a collaborative process to help design a Forest Service timber sale (Blue Alder) located in the Wolf Lodge drainage on the Coeur d’Alene River Ranger District. KEA was not alone—the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Idaho Sporting Congress shared similar concerns and decided not to participate in the process. The collaborative group was composed of local representatives of the timber industry, businesses, citizens and two regional environmental groups.
     KEA did not take this decision lightly. There were serious discussions among the KEA staff and board members, several of whom have many years of experience dealing with Forest Service issues. The board voted unanimously not to participate in the process. In June, the Blue Alder Project Environmental Assessment (EA) was released to the public and it reinforced KEA’s decision. Here are some of the reasons we chose not to participate:

The decision to log and the approximate amount of logging of the Blue Alder Project was pre-determined before the sale was made public.

      The decision to log the Blue Alder area was made prior to the public having the first opportunity to comment during the “scoping” period in December 2007. The Forest Service, in its October 22, 2007, Periodic Sale Announcement Report, stated that it was planning to log eight million board feet from the Project Area. It was also a foregone conclusion when the collaborative group first met.
     The Preferred Alternative in the EA calls for logging 10 million board feet of trees, which works out to about 2,000 logging truck loads (a logging truck hauls approximately 5,000 board feet). The EA calls for 1522 acres of regeneration logging (taking at least 60% of the trees in a unit) and building 3 miles of new roads and 1.2 miles of “temporary” roads in the most heavily roaded Ranger District in the country—a District that cannot afford to maintain its existing roads.
     The agency presented a draft map of the logging units to the collaborative group, and it appeared that the group’s role was to comment if and how the units were to be logged. The draft unit map differs very little from the final map displayed in the Environmental Assessment. It was not a question if the area would be logged, but how many trees were going to be cut. When the EA was released, it turned out the CdA River Ranger District’s preferred alternative is to log ten million board feet, two million more than was originally planned.

It appeared that the environmental analysis and the finding that the timber sale would have “No Significant [environmental] Impacts” were made to conform to the decision.

      Even less surprising is that the legally required effects analysis as described in the EA found that there would not be any significant effects from the two alternatives: cutting eight million board feet and no new roads, or from cutting nine million board feet and building 4.2 miles of new road. The environmental analysis was done after the decision was agreed upon by the Forest Service and the collaborative group. KEA does not think it is coincidence that there was a Finding of No Significant Impacts in the Decision Notice for the alternatives selected by the collaborative group.

It is a poor area to conduct a major timber sale.

     There are four streams in the Wolf Lodge drainage proposed for logging that are not meeting the State of Idaho water standards and are listed as impaired or threatened, 303(d) streams: Lower Wolf Lodge, Marie Creek (sediment, substrate habitat alterations and water temperature) and Cedar and Blue Creeks (sediment). It would seem that additional logging and road building on the scale proposed for Blue Alder would add to the already adverse cumulative effects.
     KEA questions the decision to have a major timber sale in the area at all. The Wolf Lodge drainage has been the focus of recent heavy logging, which has had adverse effects on several of the streams in the area. According to the EA, “Peak flows and water yield effects from the past timber harvest activities on both public and private managed lands for the water shed in the Blue Alder Resource [area] are still recovering.” EA at 3-91
     The following description in the Environmental Assessment of Marie Creek is repeated for other streams in the Project Area. “Past management activities have altered the flow regime in Marie Creek and its tributaries. Harvest and road-building have altered the timing, duration and magnitude of flows. Hydrologic changes are caused by many factors including canopy removal, increased drainage efficiency due to the road network, and the increased gradient from stream straightening.” EA at 3-102.
     The Wolf Lodge Creek Drainage is flashy, which means it responds quickly to events that result in large runoff, like rain-on-snow events. The greater amount of logged openings created between 3000 to 4500 feet in a drainage, the greater the response and runoff to rain-on-snow events. Lots of openings, clearcuts and other types of regeneration logging were created in the Wolf Lodge drainage within the last 25 years, including the Horizon Sun Timber Sale that was logged about 10 years ago. These areas are not hydrologically recovered. The Blue Alder timber sale units will create several additional openings in the canopy and would further increase runoff during rain-on-snow events.
     Large runoff events add bedload sediment (rocks, gravels and cobbles) to the stream that adversely affects fish habitat. These events also contribute fine sediment to the stream. There was a very visible plume of sediment discharged from Wolf Lodge Creek into the CdA Lake during the large runoff event that occurred this spring. More logged openings, more runoff, and more sediment. These sediments contain phosphorus and nitrogen, and as more nutrients enter the lake, the greater the chance exists of suspending some of those 83 million tons of toxic sediments that are currently on the lake bottom.
KEA challenges the premise for the timber sale.
     The Blue Alder Project is being put out under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA), which is yet another oxymoron from an administration that is noted for its anti-environmental proclivities. This sale’s claim to virtue, its supposed purpose, is to protect the nearby homes by reducing the risk and intensity of fire, and improving the composition of tree species in the Project Area. KEA supports the protection of homes from fire if done properly.
     Fire experts agree that one of the most important ways to protect homes from wildfire is to establish a defensible space within 100 feet around a home. There is a state sponsored Fire Smart program that advises home owners how to best protect their home. Also, many experts recommend concentrating on removing small trees and brush, called ladder fuels, from ¼ to ½ mile around the perimeter of the community to be protected. The Blue Alder project calls for removing large trees, from 10”-21,” many in logging units one to two miles away from the closest residence. Large trees produce bigger logs, not bigger fire risk.
     I think it is important to note that, unfortunately, much of the Forest Service budget is proportional to the amount of timber that is cut—the greater the budget, the greater the job opportunities. The volume of timber (trees) logged has dropped precipitously since 1990 and so have Forest Service jobs. I suspect the pressure on the Forest Service to put out large timber sales is partially job driven.
     The agency also wants to replace many of the existing tree species, grand fir, hemlock, cedar, and Douglas fir with long lived seral species like larch, white pine and ponderosa pine trees. For some reason or other, the Forest Service has a bias against trees that have a tendency to get disease and die quicker than other trees, even though 69% of the area is moist habitat, where these trees naturally grow. Replacing them with other species is kind of like euthanasia for the forest. The agency doesn’t mention that cedar trees, one of the longest lived tree species in the forest, command a very high price, and Douglas-fir trees are sought after by the construction industry. A cynical person could say that cutting a high volume of large Doug-fir trees might be the primary motivation for this timber sale. It is not clear how much cedar is to be logged.
     KEA has been tracking and commenting on this timber sale ever since it was first proposed. As expected, the Forest Service has refuted our comments. KEA carefully reviewed the Environmental Assessment (EA) when it was released in June and found that the analysis in the EA did not fully assess the impacts of the proposed timber sale. KEA, along with the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Idaho Sporting Congress filed “objections” to the project as proposed in the Environmental Assessment. The groups believe that the Environmental Assessment does not support the Forest Service’s claim that the logging would have no significant impacts. Because the timber sale is put out under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, no formal appeals are allowed. KEA expects the Forest Service to reject to our objections as they did our comments.
     The group’s formal objections to the timber sale can be found here.