'Friends' threatens lawsuit
By MIKE RICHESON
Bigfork Eagle
Friends of the Wild Swan put the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Land Board on notice that the Three Creeks Timber Sale Project on the Swan River State Forest violates the Endangered Species Act.
The possible take of bull trout, an endangered species, in particular caused Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan, to file the notice.
“There is take when the Forest Service does this kind of project,” Montgomery said. “Is this good for bull trout? I don’t think it is, and I don’t think the DNRC is qualified to determine of they’ve mitigated for take.”
The term “take” is not limited in its meaning to only “death.” Take can also mean significant disruption to an animal’s habitat.
Montgomery claims that the timber sale - with the addition of 19 miles of new road, improvement/maintenance of 47 miles of existing roads, the reclamation of two miles of road and the reconstruction of six stream crossings - will create negative short-term effects substantial enough to cause “take” of bull trout.
According to the final Environmental Impact Statement by the DNRC concerning the Three Creeks project, overall sedimentation for the South Fork Lost Creek, Cilly Creek and Soup Creek areas will be reduced by about 54 tons per year.
Montgomery also cites the lack of a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) and an Incidental Take Permit by the DNRC in her complaint.
“They’ve been working on the HCP since 2003,” Montgomery said. “I don’t know what’s taking them so long. In the meantime, they are going forward with this very large timber sale. I raised this issue two years ago with this project; this didn’t come out of the blue.”
David Groeschl, forest management bureau chief for the DNRC, said that the project meets all the statutes of law along with the state’s own forest management rules.
“We did quite a bit of work on this project,” Groeschl said. “We held two 45-day public comment periods to identify issues of concern and put together an ID team to work to mitigate those issues. There was a lot of broad community support for the project.”
Groeschl said that Montgomery’s concerns over the HCP were premature since the document is in development, and logging isn’t slated to start until at least the first part of July.
Groeschl also stated that the DNRC met with Montgomery a couple of times to address her concerns about the timber sale.
“This project addresses everything in the rules and is in compliance with the Swan Valley Conservation Agreement,” he said. “We’ve been managing those lands for many years, and we’ve been doing it in such a way that it’s sustainable. The grizzly bears are still there. We still have the bull trout. We’re going to do the things that ensure we continue to have grizzly bears and bull trout.”
The Three Creeks Project - Alternative B - includes logging 23.7 million board feet of timber from 1,884 acres in the South Lost, Cilly and Soup Creek drainages on the Swan River State Forest for a period of three years. The project involves logging 1,222 acres of old-growth forest habitat with varying degrees of harvest. On Feb. 20, 2007, the Land Board authorized the first phase of the project that will allow logging 6.8 million board feet of timber from 679 acres, including 420 acres of old-growth forest habitat and five miles of road construction.