Resident questions logging operation

Driving around Yellowstone Trail Road, a familiar sight is missing from the landscape, as 2.2 million board feet of timber is slowly being logged away by the Bureau of Land Management.

Logging operations for the BLM's Blue Creek East Timber Sale in the Wallace Forest Conservation Area at Blue Creek Bay started last November. The second timber sale in a series of several planned vegetation treatments aimed to reduce the impact of root disease and bug infestations in the WFCA, according to a Nov. 6 news release.

"The lovely green coniferous fir trees on the hillside are notorious for root rot problems," BLM Public Affairs Officer Suzanne Endsley said. "You get this fungus in the roots of the Douglas fir and grand fir that kills the tree and attracts bark beetles."

Laminated root rot decays the roots and host system of trees, attracting beetles and other species that take advantage of their hollow bodies. After rotting out at the base, trees can fall without warning and infect the surrounding forest, according to the news release.

A bad case of root rot led to BLM's first timber sale in 2018 from 171 acres on the Blue Creek Bay area's west side, Endsley said.

"The logging activity focuses on removing those identified by a forest pathologist's assessment of the area," Endsley said. "We don't do clear-cutting at all. We go into a pocket, say of 10 trees, and take them all out so that the root rot doesn't spread. So you'll have a little opening of scattered trees that are healthy."

Aileen Hicks had a different view.

"I thought they were clear-cutting for a home," she said. "They thrashed a bunch of hiking trails and just destroyed the area. You used to be able to go up this one trail, and all you'd see were natural trees. There's nothing left up there now."

Living nearby in Bonanza Ranch, Hicks regularly uses the trails around Blue Creek Bay. She remembers when the tree lines first started thinning about a year ago near the dock and picnic area on Coeur d'Alene Lake Drive.

From 2018 to 2019, Endsley said about 1.5 million board feet of timber was taken and sold to North Idaho contractors. In addition, BLM thinned 36 acres of the tree line to reduce "overstocked stands," the release said.

"I was almost in tears," Hicks said. "I've never seen anything like this, the thrashing of trees and hauling out these logs by the truckload. Tall piles of trees are stacked everywhere."

With the same focus in mind, BLM started the second operation covering nearly 300 acres on Blue Creek Bay's east side. The project expects to generate 2.2 million board feet of timber, the news release said, which was prepurchased by Vidovich Forestry Consulting Inc. in September.

Part of the tree harvest proceeds will go toward refilling the logged areas with more disease-tolerant species like ponderosa pine, Western white pine, and Western larch, Endsley said.

"There is a certain dollar amount per board feet in the timber industry. Whatever that value is they pay us, part of it goes to the preparation of the timber sale itself, also restorations and planting of more deciduous conifers," Endsley said.

Throughout the process, Hicks has followed up with the BLM to ask about project progression. They explained the danger beetles and root rot had for the forest, but Hicks said there was a lack of consistency in the stories. After talking to a crew at the logging site, Hicks said they were unaware of any beetle problem.

"Three times they've changed their story," Hicks said. "I'm hoping someone will stop them because they are just going and going for miles. The whole mountainside is just being cut down."

Hicks said the tree line won't be restored to what it was in her lifetime or the others who love the trails.

"They're going to plant new trees, and that will be great in 100 years, but not for me, my neighbors, or anyone else that used to come here," Hicks said. "The only way I can describe it is heartbreaking."

There is no exact end date for the logging operation. Endsley said she hopes the recreation area will be open by the beginning of March.