Your comments are needed by January 15 on a 68,000 acre logging and burning project along the Middle Fork Flathead River, including the Wild and Scenic River corridor, roadless lands, and proposed Wilderness areas!
Also included in the Granite Moccasin Project are already-logged lands where logging, road building and culvert failures (like the one pictured above) have already increased sediment in a westlope cuthroat trout stream by almost 12-fold - and yet the Forest Service wants to build another 8 miles of logging roads and log even more!
This project is being fast-tracked under new “emergency authorities,” so this may be your only opportunity to comment!
Please take a few moments and consider submitting the following comments at https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?Project=68919 (or just email your comments to Ranger Davies at robert.davies@usda.gov if you have any trouble):
1- Do not log and build roads in the Pinnacle Creek watershed, where a 1993 Forest Service Environmental Impact Statement concluded that existing roads had increased sediment yield to that creek by nearly 12-fold and that “Roads will continue to generate sediment indefinitely unless they are restored to a pre-road condition.”
2- Do not log and build roads in the Skyland area, which is far from the Highway 2 power line and transportation corridor - and also has a history of unstable soils, road slumps and culvert failures.
3- While removing trees that can strike power lines may help prevent wildfires, logging and thinning forests actually makes them drier, windier and more prone to rapid fire spread.
4- First complete the Forest Plan amendment you promised in 2022 to clarify what types of activities are allowed and not allowed in areas the Plan recommends be added to the National Wilderness Preservation System - before planning prescribed burns and whitebark pine restoration that may involve motorized equipment in proposed Wilderness and roadless areas.
5- Exercise your discretion under the emergency authority and prepare an in-depth Draft Environmental Impact Statement, then release it for a 90-day public comment period before finalizing it. Past EIS's show you have big problems to fix in this area, and not make worse!
You can read our comment letter here. You can read our much shorter letter-to-the-editor here.
You can learn more about this project in this Flathead Beacon article or by visiting the Project Web Page.
Thank you for taking a few moments to help stop the Forest Service from over-logging and over-roading our National Forests, using the threat of wildfire as a smokescreen!
Fish, wildlife and people are depending on you!
