NEWS

Mountain ranges kept whole in forest plan

Karl Puckett
kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com
Dave Wilsey hikes in the Deep Creek Roadless Area in the North Fork drainage looking toward the Smith River Canyon. In a draft plan for the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, 14,544 acres are recommended as wilderness in the Deep Creek area of the Little Belt Mountains.

Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest will be managed based on its natural geographic boundaries, rather than smaller man-made management areas based on forest activities, under a draft forest plan now out for public comment.

It’s a holistic approach to forest management that’s rare in the nation, according to Bill Avey, the forest’s supervisor.

“The public has asked us to look at the forest by geographic areas or by mountain range,” Avey said.

The draft plan for the 2.8 million-acre forest, which is headquartered in Helena and Great Falls, also recommends 281,235 acres of wilderness and says 667,079 acres are suitable for timber production.

The Forest Service has scheduled nine public hearings on the plan beginning Jan. 23.

The forest land and resource management plan, when finalized, will guide recreation, grazing, logging, vegetation treatment and other activities in the forest for the next 15 years.

“We’re revising our forest plan today because the last ones were written in 1986, and a whole lot’s changed both socially and ecologically,” Avey said.

The Crystal Cascades in the Big Snowy Wilderness Study area.

The plan will replace individual plans written in 1986 for Helena and Lewis and Clark national forests, which were separate at the time. The forests merged into one forest in 2015.

Among the changes on the ground since the last plans were approved is a bark beetle epidemic affecting millions of acres of land that never could have been envisioned in 1986, Avey said. Mortality in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest ranged from 35 to 90 percent of the trees, depending on the area.

Demand for more recreation also has increased since the 1980s, Avey said.

“The management area approach in the old plans, when you look at a map it kind of looks like a big bowl of spaghetti in some ways,” he said.

Previously, natural geographic areas or mountain ranges were broken into management zones with different focus such as wildlife, timber or other activities.

That was the prevailing thought at the time, Avey said, but the approach tended to fragment the landscape.

The proposed forest plan sets up broad geographic areas that will be managed as a single area, as opposed to breaking mountain ranges up into management areas, Avey said.

Those geographic areas are spread across 150 miles north to south and 200 miles east to west along the Continental Divide in southwestern and central Montana.

Michelle Thoroughman of Great Falls take in the view of the Big Snowy Wilderness Study Area overlooking Half Moon Canyon. In a draft plan for the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, 103,480 acres is recommended as wilderness in the Big Snow Mountains.

“Everybody is kind of waiting to see how this works,” Avey said.

Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest is one of the first in the nation to give it a try, he said.

Members of the public asked the agency to manage the land on a landscape level, Avey said.

The forest lends itself to that kind of management because it is made up of several separate island mountain ranges such as the Little Belt, Big Belt and Big Snowy mountains and the Rocky Mountain Front, he said.

The proposed plan sets “desired conditions, goals, objectives, standards and guidelines” for geographic areas within the forest. Avey is expected to make a decision on the final plan in 2018.

“So much of the plan is about what’s the desired conditions look like,” he said. “Because everything we’re doing at the project level should be aligned with what the plan says when we make a final decision.”

Under the proposal, the forest is proposing more definite management direction for land with special characteristics located within the larger geographic areas, Avey said.

One example is a recreation emphasis along the South Hills area near Helena. That special emphasis doesn’t preclude other activities, Avey said.

Forest land along the nationally recognized Smith River is another example, he said.

“Along that corridor, we’re going to try to manage it to maintain its integrity with the Smith River,” Avey said.

Snowshoeing is popular in Dry Canyon in the Big Snowy Wilderness Study Area, where the U.S. Forest Service, required to conduct a wilderness inventory of the forest lands, is recommending 103,480 acres as wilderness for the Big Snowy Mountains. If the wilderness recommendation ends up in the plan, the recommendation wouldn’t create new wilderness, which can only be done by Congress.

In the draft plan, the forest service recommends nine areas totaling 281,235 acres for wilderness.

“We want to use this proposed action as a starting point for folks to frame their comments,” Avey said.

That’s 20 percent of the 1.4 million acres that the Forest Service evaluated as potentially suitable for future wilderness.

A 2012 Forest Service planning rule required the Forest Service to inventory land for recommended wilderness.

Areas of recommended wilderness in the plan will not become new wilderness when the plan is approved, Avey emphasized.

Only Congress can designate wilderness, he noted.

Of the 281,235 acres, 57,655 acres was recommended as wilderness in previous plans, making 223,580 acres new recommendations.

The largest amount of new recommended wilderness, 103,480 acres, is in the remote Big Snowy Mountains south of Lewistown.

“I can understand that a wilderness designation close to Lewistown might be of some concern to folks,” said Dave Byerly, the former owner of the Lewistown News-Argus newspaper who also worked in business management before retiring. “But the Snowies have been managed for 40 years as wilderness. It really hasn’t negatively affected us in any way that I’m aware of. There’s ample multiple use-public land around Lewistown.”

One reason the Big Snowies should be conserved is because it is the source of a spring that supplies the community with its clean water, Byerly said. And along with agriculture and small manufacturing, tourism has been identified as being crucial to the local economy, he added.

Of the 1,300 comments received during an informal public comment period before the proposed plan was developed, 74 percent referenced wilderness with 28 percent supportive of additional recommended wilderness and 60 percent opposed to additional wilderness, the draft plan says.

Among the new wilderness recommendations are 55,529 acres in the Upper Blackfoot River area that would be additions to the existing Scapegoat Wilderness. Another 51,027 acres is recommended on Nevada Mountain.

Snowshoers cross the Big Snowy Mountains on the north side of the Big Snowy Wilderness Study Area.

And 14,544 acres of recommended wilderness falls in the Deep Creek area of the Little Belt Mountains.

The forest is now looking for specific comments on the recommended wilderness in the plan, Avey said, “That will help us build a range of alternatives to make a final decision on the plan.”

Also recommended as wilderness are 28,589 acres in the Big Belt Mountains and 29,066 acres in the Blackfoot Meadows area in the Divide geographic region west of Helena. Previous forest plans also recommended those areas for wilderness.

The plan says 667,079 acres are suited for timber production. Regularly scheduled timber harvest would occur in those areas.

“We recognize our obligations to provide for social and economic sustainability for communities that are near the forest,” Avey said.

Logging could also occur in other areas if it helps meet other resource objectives, Avey said.

Examples would be Showdown Ski Area and the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest and lands protected by the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act of 2015.

John Gatchell, senior conservation director for the Montana Wilderness Association, called the plan a “good starting point.”

“It’s just a proposed action so it will change,” Gatchell said. “But it gives something specific to respond to.”

The draft plan succeeds in that it recommends wilderness for some key wildlands including along the Continental Divide, probably the most important wildlife corridor in the Northern Rockies, Gatchell said.

At the same time, Gatchell added, he is disappointed Boulder Baldy and Camas Creek in the South Big Belt Mountains were not included in the wilderness recommendation.

The recommended wilderness in the Little Belt Mountains, he added, is 3 percent of the 451,498 acres of land potentially suitable for wilderness that were inventoried in that area and includes no wilderness recommendations in the Middle Fork of the Judith Wilderness Study Area.

Gatchell supports the recreation emphasis the plan places on land connecting foot, bicycle and horse trails in the Helena South Hills to the Continental Divide Trail, saying it reflects collaboration that’s occurred between the Forest Service and recreation and conservation groups in the Helena area.

Follow Karl Puckett on Twitter @GFTrib_KPuckett

What’s next

The plan can be reviewed here. The public has 120 days to comment. CDs of the forest plan also are available at forest offices. Call Deb Entwistle at 406-449-5201 for more information. Public meetings are planned:

• 5-7 p.m. Jan. 23, Lincoln Community Center.

• 4-7 p.m., Jan. 24, Helena Radisson Colonial Hotel.

• 5-7 p.m., Jan. 25 Townsend Library.

• 5-7 p.m., Jan. 26, White Sulphur Spring High School.

• 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Jan. 30, Harlowton Library.

• 5-7 p.m. Jan. 30, Standford City Hall.

• 4-7 p.m., Jan. 31, Great Falls Civic Center.

• 5-7 p.m. Feb. 1, Browning Holiday Inn.

• 5-7 p.m., Feb. 2, Choteau Stage Stop Inn.