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Forest Service Moving on Basin Creek Timber Sale

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 18--Despite a pending lawsuit and request for a preliminary injunction to halt the project, the U.S. Forest Service plans to award the Basin Creek timber sale contract to high bidder R-Y Timber by Aug. 1.

"We're going ahead with awarding the contract because we're confident our side will prevail in this lawsuit," Butte District Ranger Steve Egeline said recently.

The case has been assigned to U.S District Judge Donald W. Molloy, based in Missoula.

On Friday, the Forest Service response to the lawsuit was lodged with the court.

Butte-Silver Bow also filed a motion to intervene in the case and a brief opposing the preliminary injunction.

"There was full consensus among all of us at Butte-Silver Bow that protection of the watershed is paramount," said county Planning Director Jon Sesso. "This work has to be done and done in a timely fashion."

Egeline said that normally with preliminary injunction requests, the court schedules a hearing and rules fairly soon after all briefs are in, but it's impossible to predict the timeline.

"At this point, we're basically at the mercy of the court," he said.

If a preliminary injunction is granted, the agency will work to get a trial date as soon as possible. If the injunction is denied, work can continue until the trial is complete.

"There have been cases in which a final decision on a lawsuit didn't come until after all the work was done on the ground," he said.

Ed Regan, resource manager for Townsend-based R-Y Timber Inc., said he's glad the Forest Service is proceeding regardless of the lawsuit.

"Once they award the contract, I fully intend to execute it and move forward with the job," he said.

The contract allows four years for work to be completed, but the $1.5 million estimated value of the sale is based on taking out most of the beetle-killed trees this year.

Under the contract, R-Y would pay the Forest Service $34 a ton for saw logs, but only 46 cents a ton for pulp wood -- a 98 percent drop in value.

Regan estimates that every year of delay would result in about 20 percent fewer saw logs as beetle damage sets in.

"It's in everybody's interest and the taxpayers' interest to harvest as soon as possible," Regan said. "We don't want to let it set until year four. We want to get right after it."

The lawsuit was filed by the Ecology Center of Missoula, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies based in Helena, and the Native Ecosystems Council in Three Forks.

The groups don't believe the project would accomplish its stated goal of helping to reduce chances of a catastrophic fire in the Basin Creek watershed, a pristine source of about 40 percent of Butte's water. They also contend it's illegal and would cause irreparable damage to wildlife

habitat.

Around 1,150 acres would be clearcut under the 2,600-acre project and 14 miles of new roads built -- two major objections of environmentalists.

Forest service officials counter that up to 95 percent of lodgepoles are dead or dying in those areas south of Butte and all roads would be obliterated once logging is done. They believe the hazardous fuels reduction project would help protect nearby homes and make it easier to fight a wildfire, should one break out.

The Montana Wilderness Association has also come out in favor of the project, and a letter expressing support was among the materials turned in to Judge Molloy Friday.

Because logging won't extend into the nearby Inventoried Roadless Area and all roads will be temporary, "we find nothing objectionable in the proposed treatment," wrote David Cronenwett, the association's Beaverhead field organizer. "Wildlife concerns are adequately dealt with in the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement)."

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Montana Standard, Butte

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Source: The Montana Standard

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