Healthy Forests
Initiative comes
too late for SNRA
By GREG
STAHL
Express Staff Writer
While the Bush
administration is busy implementing a Healthy Forests Initiative to streamline
the process by which forest managers can thin accumulated fuels, the Sawtooth
National Forest is nearing completion of its own plan to thin fire-prone areas
in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
The Red Tree
Fuels Reduction Project was initiated last May, after mountain pine beetles
continued to decimate thousands of acres of lodgepole pine trees in the upper
Salmon River Valley. The red-brown coniferous skeletons the beetles left behind
constitute a sizable amount of kindling, ready to flare if a lightning strike or
unattended campfire breaks free.
Last spring, the
Sawtooth National Forest began collecting public input for an environmental
assessment in association with the project. A draft assessment is expected for
release this spring, said Sawtooth National Forest spokesman Ed Waldapfel.
Forest officials
said they hope to implement the plan before the coming fire season, and, so far,
the Red Tree Fuels Reduction Project has gone off with very few snags.
"But we’re
not done with the process yet," Waldapfel said. "When the
pre-decisional document comes out, then we will be able to pass judgment."
While the
Sawtooth National Forest is working within the parameters set by the National
Environmental Policy Act to alleviate fire danger in areas where trees and
people live in close proximity to one another, President George W. Bush has
proposed 10 pilot projects, including one near Pocatello, to accomplish similar
goals using "streamlined" means.
The difference
will be that the areas targeted for thinning will undergo streamlined versions
of environmental analyses, and appeals will be permitted only by groups or
individuals who comment early in the process, and then only by a predetermined
deadline.
The reviews will
take into account both the environmental and economic consequences of not
thinning the forest. This gives additional weight to the potential costs related
to lost hunting and recreation seasons.
As long as the
Red Tree Fuels Reduction Project is going off with few sparks flying, Waldapfel
agreed that Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative may not be necessary locally.
"Is the
Healthy Forests Initiative something we absolutely need here on the Sawtooth
National Forest? I don’t know. I would, at this point, say no," he said.