Large tracts of dead and brown trees have become an unfortunate reality across western Montana the last few years and now the Flathead National Forest is seeking public comment on a project to address the concern.
This week the U.S. Forest Service released the environmental assessment for the Soldier Addition II Project for public comment. The public has until Aug. 15 to review and provide feedback on the project focusing on the Spotted Bear Ranger District, west of Hungry Horse Reservoir. The project outlines a variety of goals, including the removal and sale of dead timber, the restoration of whitebark pine and the removal of dangerous vegetation at recreation sites. Most of these projects, according to the proposal, are in response to the outbreak of mountain pine beetle.
“In this particular area we have a significant infestation of the pine beetle and that’s a problem,” District Ranger Deb Mucklow said.
According to a 2010 report by the U.S. Forest Service and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the Spotted Bear Ranger District has suffered more damage from the mountain pine beetle than any other district in the Flathead National Forest. Aerial surveillance showed there were more than 268,000 lodgepole pine trees covering 53,000 acres that had been either killed or damaged in the district.
Mucklow said the Soldier Addition II project would only treat 1,189 acres of forest affected by the pine beetle. She also said the treatment would include the removal and sale of trees to create usable lumber. But for that to happen, the dead trees would have to be removed soon.
“That’s why there is some urgency to this project, to be able to get this wood while there’s still some value,” Mucklow said, adding if the Forest Service waits any longer, it could only be used for firewood.
Heidi Trechsel, a tree scientist for the Forest Service, said damage done by the mountain pine beetle is much more dramatic on the east side of the divide because of fire prevention that has allowed the lodgepole pine to flourish. In Northwest Montana the forest is much more diverse and with a variety of tree types the pine beetle doesn’t have as many trees it can target to lay eggs. Once those eggs are laid underneath the bark they mature to become larva, at which point the water circulation within the tree is disrupted.
“It’s here, but you don’t see big areas of beetle kill because of the diversity,” Trechsel said. “A lot of what we have here is more localized.”
Trechsel said Northwest Montana suffered from a significant outbreak of the mountain pine beetle in the 1980s and because of that many lodgepole pine trees were killed. She added that the mountain pine beetle problem is here to stay.
“The beetle problem will not go away and they’ll always find trees,” she said. “Beetles are natural here; they’ve been here forever.”
Mucklow said the proposed Soldier Addition II project would attempt to repair some of the damage from the pine beetle and clear flammable material from the area around the Stony Hill Electronic Site in order to protect it from potential wildfires.
Copies of the environmental assessment can be obtained at Forest Service offices in Hungry Horse or Kalispell, as well as online at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/flathead/projects.