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From: “James Johnston” <james@fseee.org>
To: “Mike Petersen” <mpetersen@landscouncil.org>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 9:12 AM
Subject: Mission Brush
Hi Mike,
Any chance you or someone else would have some time to show me around the Mission Brush Project on Aug. 23-24 or 26-27?
Thanks,
James
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From: “Mike Petersen” <mpetersen@landscouncil.org>
To: “James Johnston” <james@fseee.org>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: Mission Brush
I will check, I am out during that period of time.
Thanks
Mike
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From: “James Johnston” <james@fseee.org>
To: “Mike Petersen” <mpetersen@landscouncil.org>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: Mission Brush
Well, I don’t want to hang out with an ugly old man anyway. Don’t you have any bright young idealistic youth working for you?
Thanks much.
James
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To: “James Johnston” <james@fseee.org>
From: “Mike Petersen” <mpetersen@landscouncil.org>
Subject: Re: Mission Brush
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 2:09 PM
I would have to lock them up if you came around….
Mike
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Mike Peterson is the Executive Director of the Lands Council, a conservation outfit that works on national forests in Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Western Montana. Along with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Wild West Institute (formerly the Ecology Center), they are the most frequent litigants against Forest Service silviculture projects in the Northern Region.
I have been trying to get Mike or one of his staff to show me around the Mission Brush project in Northern Idaho on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests for a while. He hasn’t been able to make it happen. I don’t blame him. He is a busy guy with more pressing tasks than acting as a tour guide for an erratic guy from Oregon and his dog. And he would be irresponsible to leave me alone with his younger staff. They’d stumble into work three days later reeking of sawdust and bar oil and chewing tobacco…
So I toured Mission Brush (see my last post) with the Bonner’s Ferry District Ranger and planner/forester type.
I have asked a lot of Forest Service employees in Idaho and Montana about the recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals en banc decision that reversed a previous court injunction against the Mission Brush timber sale and eased requirements on the Forest Service to analyze impacts to wildlife.
“The Forest Service is elated, absolutely elated,” a wildlife biologist told me a week ago.
“Oh, we’re elated,” beamed a planner two days later.
The District Ranger I toured Mission Brush with chose her words more carefully:
“It reset the clock for us because we believe, how do I put this politically correctly, I really agreed with the decision. It’s puts us back in the role of managers.”
I take this to mean that she is elated.
The tour of the Mission Brush project itself was anti-climactic. It involves a variety of different types of treatments, from thinning in a drier Ponderosa pine site to remove encroaching Douglas fir to heavy thinning to favor seral species like larch in higher elevation, wetter sites. I found myself really wishing that one of the environmental litigants could have been along for the trip. I found nothing particularly objectionable about the project… It’s hard to get a sense of something until you’ve heard both sides of the argument.
I have some photos of the Mission Brush units, but they were taken in very harsh lighting conditions—bright sun under a dense canopy. The photos show what I’ve come to expect from Forest Service thinning shows in northern Idaho: A bunch of smaller Doug fir and true firs marked for cutting and larger ponderosa pine, larch and white pine remaining.
This photo may be of more interest:
This was our last stop of the day, as clouds rolled in and soft light spilled out over the rust-tan tones of the hillside (summer’s just about over). This is the Dawson Ridge project, infamous as the site of the “Dawson Ridge Study,” which the 9th Circuit originally found to be inadequate to demonstrate that the Mission Brush project wouldn’t harm flammulated owls.
“This is one of our best dry sites on the district,” the planner told me. “My target is the dry sites because that’s the most need.” This site had been logged at least twice to remove Douglas fir. It’s also been burned several times to kill young saplings. The result is an open, park like Ponderosa pine stand.
Within a couple years, harvest of the Mission Brush project will be complete, and at least some of those units will look something sort of like this.
Next post: Wildlife biologists weigh in on the impacts to wildlife from these thinning operations.
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