Environmental groups say a planned forest thinning project in northern Idaho by the U.S. Forest Service is really a timber sale that will do more harm than good.
The Forest Service wants to thin about 900 acres of forest that surrounds at least 35 homes six miles north of Bonners Ferry to reduce the threat of wildfire.
Service officials say selling the timber from the area would generate between $300 and $600 per acre, while paying to have the area thinned would cost the agency $1,000 per acre. Officials estimate the Templeman Project, as it's called, would result in 4 million board feet of timber for local mills.
"This is basically a large timber sale project being devised in such a way as to approve it with less oversight," Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League told The Spokesman-Review. "What we're seeing is part of a pattern of abuse, and it's almost solely on the Panhandle."
Dave O'Brien, a spokesman for the Idaho Panhandle National Forest, said the project is needed.
"We really feel that we are doing the conservation measures on the forest, yet we're getting sued more and more," he said.
No lawsuits have been filed so far. But the agency last week received administrative appeals concerning the project from the Idaho Conservation League, The Lands Council, The Ecology Center, and the Selkirk Conservation Alliance. The appeals will delay the project for a month.
The groups have asked for a more thorough analysis of how the project could effect nearby streams and rivers.
Oppenheimer said the project is an example of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests' overuse of President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative, which streamlined environmental reviews to expedite logging and thinning of forests aimed at reducing wildfire threats.Associated Press via Idaho Statesman
