PUBLIC INPUT FOR NEW FOREST PLANS
When the five national
forests in Western Montana began their overdue forest plan revisions,
they were operating under the 1982 NFMA rule set. The opening
round of public input was conducted under that rule set. Since
then both planning teams have adopted the new rules and published a
"starting option" (KIPZ) and a "preferred
option" (WMPZ). Both planning teams undertook a new round
of public meetings to take comment on these options.
ROUND ONE
The Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle Forests (KIPZ) held public meetings
in the spring and summer of 2003 at several locations. The meetings
were open to
the public. At these meetings KNF presented seven general issue
topics that need to be addressed in the new plan. These topics
are:Vegetation, Fire Risk, Timber Harvest, Wildlife, Watersheds and
Aquatic Species, Inventoried Roadless Areas and Wilderness, and Access
and Recreation. Comments from the public on each of these topics
were written down on large flip sheets. The attendees then
placed five stickers next to one or more (up to five) comments
they agreed with. KIPZ has tabulated the results and we have
summarized that tabulation.
ACCESS/RECREATION
More wilderness, less motorized access --
66
No more wilderness, keep same or more
motorized access -- 1209
IRA/WILDERNESS
More or same wilderness and IRA
-- 150
Less
Wild/IRA or more access inside same -- 187
TIMBER
Less harvest
-- 54
More
harvest
-- 700
WILDLIFE
FS management should emphasize/protect wildlife -- 80
Less
emphasis/protection for wildlife
-- 368
Complete
tabulation of stickered comments
Working groups of volunteers grew out of the original
meetings. The
groups worked on statements of "Desired Future Conditions" which
the KIPZ planning team intended to use to develop the planning
alternatives. How much importance they meant to give to the work of
these groups may never be known. >>>>Libby
DFC statement
More DFC statements may be seen on the KIPZ
website
The Flathead, Bitteroot and Lolo forests have
combined to form one planning zone referred to as the WMPZ to develop new
forest plans for each forest. The Bitteroot and Lolo forests held
public planning meetings beginning in the summer of 2003 and lasting for
almost a year in some cases. The meeting minutes and
announcements of the
meetings are on the WMPZ website
Working groups were established at Darby, Stevensville,
Hamiltion, Superior, and Nine Mile among others. The Flathead held only
one advertised public meeting, which was an open house. The open house
format is only adequate as an informational tool; it does not address the
need for comment. FNF began to establish working groups for public
input in late March 04, six months after the first group formed on the
other forests. The public in the Flathead did not have the same
opportunity for discussion and interaction on the issues that the affected
public on the other forests had.
The original Flathead groups were :
· Swan Ecosystem Center aka Upper Swan Valley
Community Work Group. After one meeting, attended by MFMU members
from around the county, this group decided to limit
participation to residents south of Swan Lake.
· Flathead Forestry Project aka Flathead
Forestry Project Work Group Open to the public, this group meets biweekly.
· Bob Marshall LAC aka Bob Marshall Wilderness
Work Group This group held a meeting in Choteau to decide if they
wanted to participate. We have had no word on the outcome of
that meeting as yet.
· North Fork Preservation Assoc. aka North Fork
Community Work Group This group has decided not to participate.
·Whitefish Community Working Group Open to the
public, this group met weekly. This group was started up and
supported by the Tally Lake Ranger.
·Two new working groups were started up as a result
of our complaints about the fairness and openness of this process.
When I contacted Rachel Potter of NFPA, she told me that their meetings
were not open to the public.
Ashley Mason of Swan Ecosystem Center was
cooperative and indicated that the meetings in Condon would be open.
They held one open meeting and decided to close their meetings
to all except the few who live in the Condon area.
The NFPA and the LAC groups did not hold public
meetings in Round One.
FFP held several public meetings which were attended by a somewhat diverse group
of environmentalists, loggers, forest officials and MFMU members.
Whitefish held eight well attended meetings.
Bigfork held 3 or 4 meetings. These meetings
were facilitated by the Bigfork Ranger District.
Montana Representative Verdell Jackson with the
support of other local state legislators held four meetings.
These meetings were the best attended.
MFMU members attended all of the meetings that were
open to the public.
Originally, these groups were not publicly
advertised but that has changed, probably because of complaints from
MFMU.
This is in stark contrast to the process used by the Kootenai NF which
adjoins both the Lolo and the Flathead. They held publicly advertised
meetings at which they took some input and solicited volunteers for local
working groups.
The KNF told us at the beginning that if we could put together a
diverse group that was able to arrive at some agreement on one or more
issues, the planning team would try to incorporate that input into the
plan. No guarantees but it seemed to promise more than the usual NEPA
"send in your comment letters" routine for public input.
In late February, MFMU president, Fred Hodgeboom, sent an email to Lee
Kramer, the head planner for WMPZ requesting a series of meetings with the
planning team to discuss the revision topics. He agreed to a single two
hour meeting while questioning the need for such and pleading a lack of
time etc.
Questions:
1. Why didn’t Rob Carlin tell me that they were going to approach
these groups when I called him in mid-March. He knew that I am a board
member for Montanans For Multiple Use and that we would probably be
interested in hosting a work group?
2. Why didn’t Kramer mention that these work groups were going to
be started up on Flathead and refer us to Carlin?
3. Why did the Flathead originally work through pre-existing groups
(except for the Whitefish group) rather
than setting up ad hoc stand alone groups like the Kootenai?
4. Why were no public access, timber or recreational groups
like MFMU asked to host a working group?
5. Why wasn’t there a public announcement of this process
and solicitation for members of the public at large to participate?
Update - this problem appears to be improving.
7. Why did the Flathead wait so long to do anything?
8. Why wasn't the deadline for work group
comments delayed
so that the work groups in the Flathead could have the same
opportunity to make informed comments as the groups on the other
two forests?
9. IS PUBLIC INPUT BEING MANAGED BY FNF TO ACHIEVE A PRE-DETERMINED
RESULT?
Legislators
Host Planning Group
PUBLIC
PARTICIPATION OPPORTUNITY
Flathead
State Legislators* and local officials sponsored a series of
workshops (Flathead Community Forest Planning Group) to assist
citizens provide input to the
Flathead National Forest so that they may have a reasonable
range of viable, legal alternatives to evaluate for revision of the
Land and Resource Management Plan (New Forest Plan).
Listed below are the major points that
need pubic input in developing the new forest plan:
TOPICS:
Fire
Prevention
Forest plan revision Process
Roads
Recreation opportunities
Forest
Management
Timber Harvest and methods
Endangered
Species Recovery
ACTION
PLAN:
·
Identify
Desired Future Conditions
·
Identify
strategies to achieve Desired Future Conditions
Place:
Flathead County Fairground-Kitchen
The
series of meetings were successfully completed and the input submitted
to the Forest Service.
PUBLIC MEETING
PLAN
These
meetings used a workshop format, with emphasis on sharing and
promoting public understanding of information.
Forest Service staff were on hand to review and interpret
monitoring data, timber inventories, scientific studies, and other
such information they believe is important for public understanding of
current conditions, problems and opportunities relevant to the plan.
The public was permitted to ask questions and contribute
statements verbally or in writing relevant to desired future conditions of the forest and strategies
to achieve the desired future conditions.
Each
workshop concluded with requests for information to bring to the
next workshop.
*
Representatives: Verdell Jackson, Rod Bitney, John Brueggeman, Dee
Brown, George Everett, Stan Fisher, Rick Maedje, Bernie Olson, Bob
Lawson, Stan Fisher, Doug Mood (Speaker of the House).
Senators: Greg Barkus, Aubyn
Curtiss, Bob Depratu, Jerry O’Neil, Bob Keenan (President of the
Senate).
ROUND
ONE
of public meetings and working groups is over. Our
statements and comments have been sent to the planning teams.
PLEASE
STAY TUNED AND STAY INVOLVED
WORKING GROUP PAPERS
WHITEFISH
SWAN LAKE FLATHEAD
FORESTRY FLATHEAD
COMMUNITY
POINTS
OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN THESE GROUPS
The
meeting notes for Round One and Round Two are posted on the KIPZ and
WMPZ websites.
>>>GO
TO ROUND TWO
