The Forest Service is Fast-Tracking Fuels Reduction.

The Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest has proposed sweeping new authorizations for a forest-wide effort to reduce fuel loads using a combination of prescribed fire, mechanical treatments, and hand treatments.

Their draft environmental analysis would authorize them to conduct prescribed burning, mechanical treatments, and hand treatments across 2.3 million acres of the 2.6 million acre national forest.  The Forest Service anticipates it will treat approximately 20,000 acres annually for about the next 20 years under this authorization.

Environmental analysis is not adequate

Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is concerned that an Environmental Analysis is not an adequate level of analysis for a project that could impact nearly ninety percent of the forest for the next two decades. We are asking the Forest Service to withdraw their current Environmental Analysis, and instead prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement that takes a more thoughtful look at the potential direct, indirect, and cumulative effects of the proposed authorization and provides more guidelines for site-specific projects.

The proposed project deserves close scrutiny due to the scope of the authorization and the substantial implications for fish and wildlife, air and water quality, native plant communities, recreation, noxious weeds, and other natural and cultural resources. While we agree with the intent of protecting communities from catastrophic wildfire, we are worried the current Environmental Analysis gives the Forest Service a blank check to conduct fuel reduction projects practically anywhere on the Forest.

Scope goes far beyond the Wildland Urban Interface. 

Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is specifically concerned the proposed project area covers portions of the forest that are far from human communities and well outside of the Wildland Urban Interface.  Specific fuels-reduction projects are not identified or analyzed in the draft EA. Instead, the Forest Service would release site-specific projects on an annual basis and these projects would require no further analysis under NEPA.

The criteria that would be used to select site-specific projects is also highly ambiguous. While the intent is to treat areas where communities are at risk, projects using motorized equipment like dozers could happen under this authorization in recommended Wilderness, Inventoried Roadless Areas, and areas otherwise closed to motorized vehicles including the tribally-significant Badger-Two Medicine Area. Greater justification and guardrails are needed!

Better consultation and community engagement

In addition, Glacier-Two Medicine alliance is concerned the Forest has conducted practically no consultation with the Blackfeet Nation, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, nor any other Tribal Nation with treaty rights or historic ties to the forest. This violates their trust responsibility and other legal and policy commitments. The Forest needs to pause the process until meaningful government-to-government consultation has been completed.

Beyond improving Tribal outreach, we are also asking the Forest to make a greater commitment to inform and engage other affected communities during the selection, design and implementation of projects. Simply promising to post a list of projects annually to the Forest’s website and social media is not going to cut it.

In summary, the Forest Service Environmental Assessment suffers from an incredible lack of specificity, contains no site-specific analysis under NEPA for projects that could occur in sensitive wildlands, and lacks assurance for future public involvement and agency accountability in the selection, design, and implementation of fuel-reduction projects.