A small chunk of northern Minnesota forest once included in a federal roadless area will be logged under a plan approved by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The DNR's new forestry plan for the Border Lakes region calls for logging 260 acres of state land in the Superior National Forest.
The acres were part of a roadless area under the Clinton administration that was reopened to roads and logging by the Bush administration.
DNR Commissioner Gene Merriam on Thursday met with environmental groups to disclose the state's plan, part of the agency's 10-year strategy for the 500,000-acre Border Lakes region that stretches across the top of the state. Much of the land is interspersed with federal lands.
Environmentalists see the state logging plan as a possible death knell to a longstanding effort to designate 62,000 acres around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness as off-limits to new roads and loggers.
The groups -- including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, Audubon Society, Wilderness Society and Izaak Walton League of America -- urged the DNR to stay out of the roadless areas so they could someday be protected.
The 260 acres are part of 1,100 state-owned acres within 11 tracts included in the formerly designated roadless area. The federal government has little control over how the state manages its lands and must, by law, grant the state access. The state often logs land it owns inside the national forest, but this proposal is more controversial because of the ongoing battle over roadless designation.
Some of the state logging sites that make up the 260 acres are as small as 20 acres, and some are two miles or more from the nearest road, said Joshua Davis, forest program coordinator for the Sierra Club in Minnesota.
The 260 acres in the former roadless area are less than "1 percent of the state's Border Lakes region, but it will effectively eliminate about one-third of the roadless area from ever being protected," Davis said. "This is a bad decision for the forest and for taxpayers who will have to pay to build the roads."
The groups had urged exchanging the state lands for federal lands in other regions, a proposal dismissed by the DNR.
Brad Moore, DNR deputy commissioner, said Thursday the Border Lakes plan has been approved and will go into effect this spring. Moore said the state is obligated to manage its school trust fund lands inside the national forest by selling timber that grows there. The money goes to help pay for education in the state.
"We have a fiduciary responsibility here," Moore said. "And this area already has been roaded.... It's been logged before, many years ago."
About 62,000 acres in the Superior National Forest were included in the Clinton plan that affected 58.5 million acres nationally, mostly in western states. The plan drew millions of public comments in support, but also ignited the wrath of the timber industry that said the roadless plan was creating de facto wilderness.
The Bush administration put the Clinton plan on hold early in 2001 and then scuttled it in May. Instead, Bush unveiled a plan to allow governors of each state to petition for the federal lands to be roadless.
Under the Border Lakes area logging plan, the DNR will sell about 20 percent of the available trees on state land over 10 years. Environmental groups also criticized the plan's lack of protection for old-growth trees, while industry groups said the DNR wasn't logging the area fast enough.
"That tells me we probably got it about right," Moore said.
Environmental groups cited the Agassa Lake roadless area north of Ely and adjacent to the BWCAW. The state owns just 3 percent of the land near Agassa Lake, but the planned DNR logging, and new access roads to reach the site, will forever disqualify the land for future roadless protection, Davis said.
That's just fine with officials in the state's timber industry who say the forest outside the BWCAW should be managed for wood products and not wilderness. Logging interests note the nearby 1.1 million acre BWCAW already is off-limits to roads and logging.
"The state and counties that have land in the (national) forest have the absolute right to manage that land as they see fit. The state is finally doing that," said Wayne Brandt, executive vice president of the Minnesota Forest Industries group.
DNR leaders met with timber industry officials on the plan in December.
Brandt said the state's Border Lakes logging plan will further stifle the supply of trees for Minnesota mills by extending the growth period for several species. Much of the aspen in the area is being managed to grow 75 to 80 years, Brandt said, while the industry says it should be cut every 50 to 60 years.Duluth News Tribune
