[Vision2020] Her View: Land Exchange Not in the Public Interest

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (September 13, 2010) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with a
VERY special thanks to Marilyn Beckett of Moscow.

 

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HER VIEW: Land exchange not in the public interest

By Marilyn Beckett

 

Marla Bieker of Western Pacific Timber supports the Upper Lochsa Land
Exchange (Daily News, Her View, Sept. 6).

 

Western Pacific Timber (aka: TWJ Holdings), originated the proposed exchange
with the U.S. Forest Service of 39,317 acres of checkerboard Upper Lochsa
for 28,212 national forest acreage throughout northern Idaho. From south to
north, identified lands for exchange are in the areas of Silvers (Riggins),
Elk City, Lolo Creek, Pierce, Dent, Elk River, North Fork of the Clearwater
River, Dworshak, Bovill, Harvard/Potlatch, Skyline Drive, Mullan, Highway
3/Bull Run, Spirit Lake and Highway 41.

 

These "scattered parcels" Bieker calls them, are spread across the northern
region, but her assertion they are "already surrounded by private land" is
false and misleading. For instance, the Dworshak parcel is bordered by state
land and the Army Corps of Engineers. If exchanged as proposed, the USFS is
left with an even more "small, isolated parcel" since it exchanges only part
of its parcel, further fragmenting their holdings and increasing management
difficulties. 

 

Bieker targets the value of returning the Lochsa to USFS ownership.

 

She purposefully fails to mention the value of lands leaving USFS ownership
once traded away. This is why nearly every county with lands involved in the
exchange, district representatives to the Idaho Legislature and the general
public have fought for nearly two years to stop any exchange. The people
recognize their area lands won't be valued appropriately, and costs to the
public can't be balanced by exchanging for the Lochsa.

 

>From 28,212 acres on the trading table, 24.5 square miles is from the
Palouse Ranger District, 15 percent of the district. That much land lost
from the smallest district in the Northern Region leaves it extremely
vulnerable to complete elimination by fragmentation through future
exchanges. It will be much easier for subsequent forest supervisors to
justify eliminating the Palouse District. The likelihood of this happening
is illustrated by earlier attempts to consolidate the Upper St. Joe
checkerboard in the Panhandle. Panhandle USFS administrators are watching
what happens with the Upper Lochsa Land Exchange very closely, arming
themselves for the next exchange, where they can cherry pick more
"scattered, difficult to manage parcels" to trade off. Why is the USFS
disposing of our land?

 

The Palouse District has been managed for "multiple use" for generations -
investments in roads, silviculture and timber management where the soils and
climate allow trees to grow twice as fast and provide an invaluable resource
base. These soils offer potential that the Lochsa lands cannot match.
Beiker's Lochsa has "well stocked timber plantations," a remnant of Plum
Creek Timber that stripped the Lochsa and subsequently planted some low
elevation sections. The rest is high and steep - what survives does so under
severe conditions. 

 

The Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation, a co-sponsor of this exchange, collaborates on
the basis of reinvigorating elk calving grounds in the Upper Lochsa. Yet
their local membership is skeptical - they know the vast elk populations in
our lands, because they are part of the public who access these "scattered"
parcels and see the prolific herds. Would privatization of our lands
negatively affect the elk herds here? Is that what happened in the mangled,
clearcut Upper Lochsa supposedly "well managed for more than a hundred
years?" 

 

Private industry in Idaho does not have a strong forest practices act. We
invite businesses here on the cheap at the expense of the people and land.
WPT retains Bieker - she doesn't write as a "citizen who recreates on
federal lands." If she cared about people who recreate (and survive) on the
federal lands resource, she'd quit her job. 

There's much more to this story, one that means everything to "the American
people, who really own our nation's forests." Many private and federal
foresters with decades of experience concur - this exchange is not in the
public interest.

 

Marilyn Beckett of Moscow is a friend of the Palouse Ranger District. 

 

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Thanks again, Marilyn, one of the many friends of the Palouse Ranger
District.

 

Seeya round town, Moscow.

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

 

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails." 

 

- Unknown 

 

 

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