Public scoping open on USFS plan to re-route section of Copper Creek Rd.

The Lincoln Ranger District is working through the planning process for rerouting a one mile stretch of Copper Creek Road, located about a mile and a half north of Snowbank Lake, from it's current location near the waterway onto a bench upslope and away from the creek bottom.

The goal of the reroute is to help reduce potential impacts to important bull trout habitat in the area. Bull trout are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The Forest Service published the original notice of public scoping online at the beginning of August, with a two-week comment period. After seeing that no one had commented on it by the Aug. 16 deadline, they extended the comment period until Sept. 4 and sent out hard copies of the updated notice last week.

The need to relocate the road, as well the lingering effects of the Snow Talon Fire, was highlighted in 2014, when an overflow channel of the creek washed out a section of the road below Cotter Creek.

"After the Snow-Talon fire there's so much woody debris there that the channel moves around quite a bit," said George Likness, the Lincoln Ranger District fisheries biologist. He explained that, in addition to a potential for future road closures, the added sediment load from washouts is bad for bull trout spawning.

"They require clean water, cold water and complex habitat. With some of the Crown restoration funds we were looking to see if we could move that portion ... up onto a bench out of the bottom of the stream valley itself. It costs about the same to move the road as it would be to actually rip rap that entire region of channel," Liknes said.

Lincoln District Ranger Michael Stansberry said it's the type of project for which the restoration funds are intended.

"We get that collaborative forest landscape restoration money, what we call Southwestern Crown of the Continent money, and these are exactly the type of projects that really go well toward restoring the heath of an ecosystem," he said.

The District is also partnering with the Big Blackfoot Chapter of Trout Unlimited on the project. According Liknes, BBCTU has partnered with the Forest Service on all major Southwest Crown collaborative projects in the Blackfoot watershed involving stream and riparian area health.

Liknes said the road relocation project won't impact access to the upper Copper Creek or Copper Bowls area.

"If we can start working on it even this fall, people can still access the area via the old road," he said.

If they do start this fall, he said they would probably complete it next summer between mid-July to September. "The only time there would be short delays where people would have problems getting by would be when we have equipment right where the two connect," Liknes said.

Once the new section of road is open, plans call for removing the original road but leaving a short stretch of it on the west end that will be converted to parking access for a nearby campsite.

According to the scoping notice, a biological evaluation of the project's impact on wildlife species identified as sensitive by the Forest Service will be completed before the final decision is made. Since the project area is within habitat used by grizzlies, lynx and wolverine, any effects to them will be analyzed in a biological assessment.