Land Board Unanimously Approves Controversial Three Creeks Timber Project

Despite fierce opposition by conservation organizations, the Land Board gave the unanimous go-ahead to one of the largest timber projects on state lands in recent years.

The Three Creeks project encompasses some 10,383 acres of state forest lands near Swan Lake upon which harvest and treatment will take place over the next four years in three large timber sales and several small permit sales.  Phase I, which the Board approved in February, is projected to harvest 6.8 million board feet of timber on 1,884 acres, including 1,222 acres of old growth.

According to Dave Groeschel, Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) Forest Management Bureau Chief, "we worked hard to strike a very important and delicate balance" on the project, which he says is driven not by the hard targets of timber harvest, but by the need to treat what he termed "chronic, widespread, and increasing levels of insect and disease issues" in the area.  Plus, he says removing old roads that do not meet Best Management Practice standards will decrease sediment loading to nearby streams by anywhere from 35-95 percent.

But building 19 miles of new road, 13 miles of which would be permanent, and reworking 47 miles of road in Swan Valley grizzly, bulltrout, and cutthroat trout habitat to harvest old growth forest is not what some would call "balance," and conservationists questioned whether the driving factor was forest health or meeting timber harvest quotas.

Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) told the Board they were arguing over the definition of old growth in 1998 and are still doing so, especially when it comes to determining what "historical condition" means.  "We believe the protection of the special value of old growth and sustained yield are being pitted against each other here and sustained yield won."

Hedges also told the Board that the information on the project was not posted on the agency's web site in a timely manner and that agency responses to MEIC's comments on what the historic condition of the landscape should be were "at best unresponsive, at worst snide," which she called "troubling."

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies' Michael Garrity opposed the sale because he didn't believe the cost-benefit analysis was accurate.  According to Garrity, the Environmental Impact Statement used a projection of $34 per ton for the sale, but the agency is now saying the timber will actually be sold for an estimated $25 per ton.  Moreover, he added, timber prices were about half of what they were two years ago and it "doesn't make good business sense" to sell now.

Arlene Montgomery of Friends of the Wild Swan objected to DNRC's definition and management of old growth.  In Montgomery's words, "producing old growth habitat through active management is an untested hypothesis" that may well result in "more logging, less connectivity for wildlife, and less biological diversity." 

Montgomery also contested the no-cut buffers of 25 feet, noting that "the last two timber sales on the Swan River Forest had 155-foot no-cut buffers to protect fish and fish habitat" and said "DNRC is regressing with this sale and there is now less protection for imperiled and endangered fish" of which both South Lost Creek and Soup Creek within the harvest area are "designated critical habitat for bull trout."  Pointing out that there was no baseline data for wildlife, Montgomery said "we are asking Canada to do it with the Kline Mine, but yet we are not doing it here on state land."

Montgomery challenged the size and volume of the proposed cut, saying DNRC is now claiming it must be done because of "bugs and disease" but that the size of the cut has doubled from 10-15 MMBF to 20-26 MMBF.  She added that when DNRC was asked on a field tour why they were logging so much old growth, the response was that they couldn't meet their timber harvest targets if they didn't.

Board members all made comments prior to voting.  Attorney General Mike McGrath said it was a very difficult decision to make, but that the anticipated sediment reduction would be good for bulltrout spawning.

State Auditor John Morrison said since this was a three-phase project, he hoped an advisory group could be assembled to "evaluate how Phase I has gone in these areas" and "get interaction going and done before Phase II comes before the Land Board."

Secretary of State Brad Johnson told the Board he wasn't a forester but "I understand that no management is not good management of our forests and that old growth is not, by definition, healthy growth."  He concluded by saying the DNRC foresters has shown themselves to be "consummate professionals" during his 26-months on the Board and that he was "not going to start second guessing them now."

Linda McCulloch, Superintendent of Public Instruction, said she, too, was going to vote for the project because she believed disease and insects fell into the category of "unplanned incidents" and that "unplanned fire could wipe out any options for economic development for the future and we need to manage that forest in a way that will benefit my kids twenty years from today as well as tomorrow."

Finally, Governor Brian Schweitzer weighed in, noting that the arguments about not selling timber when prices were low were compelling.  "I would like to be able as a Land Board member to say let's sell the timber when the price is high and sit on it when it is low - that's what private timber managers do in Western Montana."  But he noted "if there isn't a flow of timber during those down years to our local sawmills, when the time comes for us to sell our trees 6, 8, 12 years from now when the price is high there may not be local mills."  Schweitzer asked if we had 10 or twenty percent of the mills we had 25 years ago and said "at risk of losing the few mills we have left, we have an obligation to keep that pipeline flowing.  We are managing a large resource here and it is important for us to keep a sustainable timber program."  He also supported the formation of a post Phase I advisory committee.

The board approved the project unanimously.