There's been a lot in the news lately about the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership. There's also been a lot in the news about the mountain pine beetle epidemic that's killing off 500,000 acres of lodgepole pine on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
I just want to share with the public some numbers that are absolutely fundamental to the debate over logging on the BDNF. Specifically, how much was logged in the last 50 years. I hope the numbers bring a little perspective to the debate.
The following represents the percentage of "forested acres" that were logged in 50 years. I didn't use "total acres" to skew the results. No grass, rocks, or water acres are included. Only 5 percent (that's five!) of the forested acres on the BDNF has been logged in 50 years. Remember that number the next time you read about environmentalists suing over a timber sale. Doesn't any timber sale litigation now look ridiculous and petty? Wildfire has burned more in the last 10 years than man has logged in 50. The pine beetle just killed 20 percent.
The Partnership proposes to log 70,000 acres in the next 10 years. That's another 2.5 percent of the "forested acreage." Sounds pretty sustainable to me. If you projected that out to 50 years that would mean man logged 18 percent of the forest in 100 years. By then the tree that grew up in a clearcut done in 1960 would be ready for harvest. Wouldn't you think the enviros would be satisfied knowing that "natural processes" will occur on 80 percent of the forest?
The pine beetle is killing 90 percent of the lodgepole forests around the ski areas of Colorado. These are very "pro environmentalist counties." They shut down most of the timber industry in the 1990s. Now every local, state and federal politician is calling for the Forest Service to greatly expand salvage clearcutting to mitigate the fire hazard. Timber sale litigation has stopped. A large sawmill that closed in 2003 for lack of timber is planning to reopen. It's encouraging to see how people's attitude toward logging does an about face when their property values are threatened by wildfire. Lack of forest management now has an economic impact on a lot more than just some loggers.
The Colorado USFS is planning to salvage clearcut 60,000 acres over the next five years. In 2008, the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, which is comparable in size to the BDNF, sold 40 million board feet of timber. In 2008 the BDNF sold 12 million, and half that was firewood permits. In the last five years, the BDNF has harvested an average of 500 acres per year. You're not going to mitigate any fire hazard with that. How can a bunch of enviros in Colorado get so much more timber harvested but Montana can't?
The best kept secret of forestry is that regenerated lodgepole clearcuts don't burn. I've photographed this phenomenon on five different Montana wildfires. Don't take my word for it. This is what the BDNF said on page 3.40 of the Basin Creek environmental impact statement: "Local experience has shown that lodgepole regeneration stands will not burn" and "even clearcuts as old as 35 years and as tall as 30 feet would not burn." I spent five years salvage logging around West Yellowstone. After the Yellowstone fires, Philip Omi did a study for the USFS comparing the burn severity on unmanaged Yellowstone Park to clearcuts on the Gallatin National Forests. He found that "fire severity was greatest on mature forest sites on national park lands, as opposed to areas with saplings in regenerated clearcuts" and "90 percent of mature forests suffered severe fire damage while only 20 percent of regenerated clearcuts did." Salvage logging works people. Get behind the Partnership. I find it ironic that Sen. Max Baucus can find $500 million to buy Plum Creek land to give to the Forest Service who can't manage what they have now, but he can't get the "Partnership act" passed and find the money to implement it. Write him a letter.
- Derek Weidensee used to be a logger in Montana and is now a land surveyor in Rapid City, S.D. He may be reached via e-mail at survey@rushmore.com.