SEELEY LAKE – As the partial government shutdown runs into its third week, local salvage operations on the Liberty and Rice Ridge fires continue as well as green timber sales on U.S. Forest Service throughout Region 1. While current operations continue, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Inc. and the Federal Forest Resource Coalition expressed concerns about the long-term impact of the shutdown on future projects should it continue.
Pyramid was awarded the Liberty fire salvage sale and three of the four salvage sales on the Rice Ridge Fire. Pyramid’s Resource Manager Gordy Sanders said the Liberty Salvage Timber Sale will be completed within a few weeks. Pyramid is currently working on Rice Crispy, Left Mule and Dark Horse Salvage Timber Sales which were all part of the Rice Ridge Fire.
“Our intent is to complete as much as possible to recover the value in standing dead or dying timber,” wrote Sanders in an email. “We will complete most of Rice Crispy this winter and will have continual activity on the other two sales this summer and fall.”
The morning of Jan. 3, the FFRC wrote in an email shared by Pyramid that they expected timber sales currently awarded to be operable until around Jan. 14. After that they assumed that nearly all of the 3,500 active Forest Service timber sales will be suspended.
However, after a conversation with Allen Rowley, Acting Associate Deputy Chief, the FFRC was told the Forest Service Washington Office staff, who are working, are doing everything they can to prevent unnecessary disruptions to ongoing timber sales. Rowley reported that each region is identifying excepted employees who can be paid from trust or permanent fund balances, or unobligated prior year appropriations, to allow them to continue to administer existing timber sales without delay or disruption. For sales being done through existing Good Neighbor SPA’s, as long as the State has paid for the timber, the FS intention is to let the State continue to administer the contract with no disruption.
As of Jan. 4, Sanders said salvage sales or any active green timber sales on federal land in Region 1 have not been directly impacted. While Pyramid is not anticipating having to shutdown their operation, if they do it would idle logging contractors working on the sales and have a direct impact on the merchantability of deteriorating dead timber over time. It also compresses an already narrow window for portions of the sales that are required to be harvested during winter conditions.
“This restricts our operations without snow or frozen ground,” wrote Sanders. “The salvage volume is critical to meet our overall needs for log inventory to keeping running during breakup.”
Even though the roads are being plowed for logging operations, they remain closed to public travel using wheeled vehicles. According to the Over Snow Motor Vehicle Use Map for the Lolo National Forest, the roads are considered groomed snowmobile trails from Dec. 1-April 30.
As of Jan. 7, there were no other restrictions or closures due to the salvage logging operations for over-snow vehicles (snowmobiles). However, recreationists are reminded that the plowed areas are part of the active logging operation and to watch out for logging traffic.
While the current work continues, Sanders and the FFRC think there could be lasting impacts of the shutdown should it continue.
Sanders wrote the biggest impacts of the shutdown are delays in the Forest Service bidding sales that were scheduled, awarding timber sales bid prior to shutdown, and all the NEPA and analysis work on future projects.
“[Because of the standstill] there is a loss of momentum and efficiency,” wrote Sanders. “Previous shutdowns have commonly been used as the explanation for the agency not meeting its targets across all multiple use disciplines.”
The FFRC wrote in an email shared by Pyramid that the shutdown is disrupting important administrative reforms. Forest Service staff were working on the proposed revisions to the Forest Service NEPA handbook, which was due to be issued no later than March 1. Should the shutdown drag on, that effort will be delayed since these employees have been furloughed. Likewise, project and plan level decisions could be delayed as review and response to public comment is halted.
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