HLCNF releases draft Forest Plan, final EIS

After six years of work, the Helena–Lewis and Clark National Forest released the draft record of decision and final Environmental Impact Statement for their 2020 Forest Plan Thursday, May 21.

The updated plan will replace the two current Forest Plans adopted in 1986 for the then-separate Lewis & Clark and Helena National Forests. They were consolidated in 2015 and the new plan addresses land management across 2.9 million acres of National Forest arrayed in an extended 'L' from the Continental Divide near East Glacier south to mountains near Helena and east to the Snowies near Lewistown.

National Forests are legally required to have Forest Plans that provide long-term management direction. Ideally, they should be updated every 10 or 15 years to reflect changes to forest conditions, public use and science.

"Our current land management plans were implemented in 1986. Since that time, significant changes on the Forest and in surrounding communities made it clear that revisions needed to be made," Forest Supervisor Bill Avey said in a press release. "These changes include new developments in the economic landscape, growth of the surrounding communities and wildland urban interface, shifts in recreation trends, and challenges with forest conditions such as widespread tree mortality due to beetle infestation. These changes present as many opportunities as they do challenges, and the revised land management plan will guide our work to address these challenges into the future."

The revised Forest Plan and environmental impact statement came about after a series of public meetings in communities throughout the forest area in 2016 on the proposed action and again in 2018, following the release of the draft plan and EIS.

The new Forest Plan is based on Alternative F, the preferred alternative of the final EIS, which was released last week alongside the Record of Decision.

In an e-mail sent out by Avey, he explained that Alternative F is a modification of Alternative B from the 2018 Draft EIS. It "represents a mix of recommended wilderness areas and lands identified as suitable for timber production. It includes direction to provide for unique ecological conditions, active management of timber products and fuel reduction, recommended wilderness areas, and wild and scenic rivers."

"It's good to see the Forest Service moving forward with the process, because keeping things in limbo isn't good for anyone. People want to know what's going on in their backyard," said Zach Muse, a member of the Lincoln Prosperity Group (formerly the Upper Blackfoot Working Group), which has spent the last six years developing a legislative proposal for forest management in the area.

Unlike most of the other areas of the forest, the Upper Blackfoot geographic area where Lincoln is located is distinct. It lies largely west of the Continental Divide, is home to the headwaters of the Blackfoot River and is part of both the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Recovery Zone for grizzly bears and the Unit 3 of federally designated Canada lynx Critical Habitat. Locally, National Forest land encircles Lincoln, with forest land accounting for 96 percent of the geographic area's 348,185 acres. As a result, access to public lands for hunting and recreation is a serious, ongoing concern in Lincoln.

Muse said he understands it takes time to develop plans and gather feedback, but points out a key concern about the Forest Plan. "As much as we like to think it's our forest, from a local standpoint, its National Forest. But some of the folks who influence these decisions don't live here and aren't affected by the final outcome."

According to the draft Record of Decision, they received more than 1100 comment letters during the 2018 comment period, with about 80 percent of them focused on Recommended Wilderness Areas. Comments ranged from calls to turn all Inventoried Roadless Areas into recommended wilderness, to eliminating RWAs entirely. RWAs were a hot topic at the 2018 Forest Service public meeting in Lincoln, since some draft alternatives included significant acreage in the area as recommended wilderness.

While Alternative F includes seven RWA's forest-wide totaling 153,325 acres, that's about 60,000 acres less than Alternative B.

Three of the seven RWAs - Silver King, Red Mountain and Nevada Mountain– are part of the Upper Blackfoot. They total 38,302 acres within the geographic area. The 32,000-acre Nevada Mountain RWA straddles the Upper Blackfoot and Divide geographic areas, with more than 14,000 acres lying in the Divide area.

The Arrastra Creek RWA, included in Alternative B, was removed entirely, but the area is considered recreationally a primitive area.

In terms of potential timber harvest, about 369,000 acres forest-wide are deemed suitable for timber production under the plan. The Upper Blackfoot includes 42,348 acres deemed suitable. That represents about 13 percent of the geographic area.

According to the plan, timber harvest should be limited to specific purposes such as the salvage of dead or dying trees, hazard fuels reduction, insect and disease management and improved habitat and ecosystem restoration.

Forty-five rivers and stream segments are recommended for designation under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 under the plan as well. In the Upper Blackfoot, it identifies more than 40 miles of waterways, including 6.5 miles of Alice Creek, 13 miles of Copper Creek, nearly 19 miles of the Landers Fork and 4.4 miles of Snowbank Creek. Depending on their classification as recreational, wild or scenic, they will be subject to protective measures pertaining to a variety of activities, from mineral sales and lease, to motorized travel and livestock grazing, to vegetation management, among others.

Full details of the land management plan and FEIS can be found online at http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/hlc/forestplanrevision.