Let’s Discuss: The Black Ram Project on the Kootenai

Matthew posted a press release today from a coalition of these outfits, and this was part of it:

In northwest Montana, the U.S. Forest Service’s Black Ram project will allow nearly 4,000 acres of the Kootenai National Forest to be commercially logged, including clearcutting more than 1,700 acres and logging hundreds of acres of centuries-old trees. These rare, old forests are champions of carbon storage, which reduces harms from climate change. Conservation groups sued to challenge the logging and road building project on June 30, 2022.

“The U.S. Forest Service is racing to eradicate ancient primary forests on our public lands in direct opposition to President Biden’s proclamation to protect old and mature forests as an effective means of battling climate change” said Rick Bass, chair of the Yaak Valley Forest Council. “Primary old forests in the proposed Black Ram project on the Kootenai National Forest can store up to 1,900 metric tons of biomass per hectare. The Forest Service is committing climate treason in broad daylight, racing to cut the last old forests in the backcountry—logging in the wet swamps, the one place fire doesn’t go. It’s climate madness disguised as greed.”

“This report demonstrates that logging remains a critical threat to mature and old-growth forests,” said Adam Rissien, ReWilding Manager with WildEarth Guardians. “The urgent need for meaningful protections could not be more evident and until then we will continue to challenge the Forest Service when the agency seeks to decimate habitat important for imperiled species such as grizzly bears and Canada lynx.”

Here’s the Forest’s side of the story (from a document press release on final DN):

Black Ram is a science-based restoration project located northwest of Troy, Mont. The project is designed to move the landscape toward desired conditions described in the 2015 Forest Plan, including the persistence of old growth and mature trees on the landscape. The project uses ecologically-based treatments, informed by indigenous traditional ecological knowledge to improve forest health and resiliency to fire, insects and disease, and climate change, and to recruit and maintain old growth on the Forest, which is the traditional homelands of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.The environmental review analyzed over 95,000 acres of the approximately 2.2 million acre forest. Thirty-seven percent of the project area is within the Wildland Urban Interface. Project activities include timber harvest, mechanical and hand thinning for fuels reduction, wildlife and aquatic habitat improvement, prescribed burning, stream restoration and trail and recreation improvements. Less than four percent of the project area will have timber harvest, including to restore over 2,000 acres of western white pine including through reforestation with blister rust resistant stock. No harvest will occur until calendar year 2023 and only after additional core habitat is secured for grizzly bears.

All treatments within designated old growth areas are designed to maintain and improve old growth characteristics on the landscape, and ensure it persists into the future per the requirements in the Forest Plan. No harvest of old growth is planned under the project, except if needed for public safety or to address insect or disease hazard. Project goals include retaining the largest and healthiest trees to restore and grow resilient stands for the future. Grizzly bear protections will be implemented as well and the project will improve the production of huckleberries, which are a primary food source for bears.The project is the result of extensive public involvement and government to government consultation with Tribes. The Black Ram Project is in Ktunaxa Territory and the project area is critical to the culture and religion of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and greater Ktunaxa Nation. “The Tribe supports the Black Ram project, because it protects our Ktunaxa resources, furthers restoration of Ktunaxa Territory forests and was developed through our government-to-government relationship with the United States Forest Service,” said Gary Aitken, Jr., Vice-Chairman, Kootenai Tribe of Idaho.

As we’ve discussed before, Bass is a great writer in terms of painting a picture with words. But it boils down to:

-clearcutting
-cut old growth forests
-logging in swamps
-logging hundreds of acres of “century old” trees.. (not old growth).

The Kootenai Forest says “no harvest of old growth except for public safety or to address insect or disease hazard.”
I didn’t see anything about “swamps” but how wet the soils are would be in the EA presumably.
Also, the Kootenai Tribe supports the project.

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But the concern in the Carbon Forest press release was mostly about carbon and old-growth. So the questions remain and we can dig into them.

Do the KF and RB agree on the definition of “old growth”?
Do the KF and RB agree on the definition of “clearcut”?

If the KF says “no harvest of old growth” except for “public safety or to address insect or disease hazards”, would RB say that that is an accurate characterization?
If not, why not? Where and why do these sources disagree about this project specifically?
Can we get down to the silvicultural prescriptions at issue?

We actually have dug down to this level previously on a project in NW California, and at the end of the day, I think it really helped our mutual understanding.

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What I thought was interesting about the objections was how few there were, given the media attention to this specific project. It seems like the objectors are fairly common to any tree cutting projects in Region 1. So why the unusual amount of interest?
Here’s a link to the issue response letter. It’s full of links to where explanations are given in the EA. I think you can get a good idea of what it’s like to work on these projects by reading the objections, the response and following the links to the analyses in the responses.