COMMENT DEADLINE: July 1 preferred, accepted later (by July 15th recommended)
Please help the Forest Service to improve the Granite Moccasin proposed logging and forest management project. Ask the Forest Service to prioritize protecting fish and wildlife habitat, connectivity, and the scenic integrity of the Wild and Scenic river corridor.
The project is being analyzed under a fast-track emergency authorization which means this is the final opportunity to comment.
Suggested talking points listed below.
Mail:
Rob Davies, Hungry Horse Ranger District
PO Box 190340
Hungry Horse, MT 59919
Hand Deliver:
Rob Davies, Hungry Horse Ranger District
10 Hungry Horse Dr.
Hungry Horse, MT 59919
The Flathead National Forest has proposed a major logging and forest management project along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and in the Skyland area adjacent to the Badger-Two Medicine that the Forest Service says is needed to reduce wildfire risk to communities and infrastructure (primarily powerlines, highway and railroad), provide wood products to local mills, and improve forest health and vegetative diversity. The project includes 2,417 acres of commercial logging (including clear cuts, and various levels of thinning), another 675 acres of non-commercial thinning, plus approximately 1,800 acres of prescribed burns or whitebark pine restoration. Over seven miles of new road construction is slated to carry out the project.
Of particular concern, logging and other “treatments” would occur on about 401 acres of the Wild and Scenic River Corridor (primarily clearing a 300’ swath to prevent blowdown on the powerlines) and on 2,250 acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas, plus in another 50 acres of old growth. Hand planting blister rust resistant whitebark pine would occur in recommended Wilderness.
What’s at Stake
The Granite Moccasin project will be implemented in an extraordinarily important area of wildlife connectivity between Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. It will affect the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork of the Flathead river corridor, recommended wilderness additions to the Great Bear, Inventoried Roadless Areas, plus vital wildlife habitat for grizzly bears, lynx, bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout, wolverine, elk, moose and mule deer, amongst other sensitive species or resources. It’s essential that care is taken to properly design and implement this project to minimize impacts.
Suggested talking points
- Share with the FS why you love these national forest lands and want to see any forest management take extreme care to minimize impacts to fish and wildlife habitat, connectivity, scenery, and the integrity of this increasingly rare and special wild country.
- Share general support for FS efforts to protect communities and infrastructure from uncharacteristic wildfire so long as it is done in a strategic way, coordinated with private landowners, and according to best available science for the particular forest types being treated.
- Appreciate the effort made since the Proposed Action to design treatments to minimize effects on fish and wildlife habitat and connectivity. Encourage continued attention.
- The justification for the project is fuels reduction to reduce wildfire risk to communities and infrastructure. However, the Environmental Assessment provided almost no substantive analysis or explanation about how the treatments proposed will achieve this outcome. Please ask the FS to clarify why they selected the locations for treatment that they did, the probability the treatments actually reduce fire risk to adjacent private land or infrastructure, how they align with past and future treatments, and whether the Forest Service is coordinating with private property owners to reduce their fuels or take other fire wise actions.
- Tell the FS that no temporary or permanent roads should be built or re-opened as part of this project in order to better protect fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, and non-motorized recreation. Should any roads be opened or built, they need to be hydrologically stable and disconnected from the watershed, with at least the first ¼ mile obliterated to prevent illegal motorized access.
- Support the whitebark pine restoration, aspen regeneration, culvert removal, and prescribed fire activities proposed in the project
Please join us on July 8 for a community comment writing event!
Learn More
Download and read Forest Service project documents.
Comment on major logging project proposed along the Middle Fork Flathead river
Ask the Forest Service to prioritize protection of wildlands and fish and wildlife habitat in the Middle Fork Flathead River corridor. Comment on the proposed Granite Moccasin logging project today!