Model of stewardship: Pyramid Mountain Lumber and Montana Forests

Since work began in the mountains north of Seeley Lake two years ago, the project has become the poster child for stewardship contracting, attracting a steady stream of onlookers.

Clearwater project improves forest health while building bridges in community

SEELEY LAKE – Invariably, someone in the crowd snickers when Gordy Sanders describes how his lumber mill bought timber from the U.S. Forest Service by installing 18 sweet-smelling toilets.

By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian

Then Sanders, resource manager for Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co., starts talking about his commitment to the community where Pyramid has done business for 54 years and to the forests that close tight around the town.

Seeley Lake District Ranger Tim Love chimes in, telling how the town relies upon its namesake lake for drinking water and how outhouses at campgrounds upstream were polluting the lake. "Those newly installed vault toilets," he says, "will help keep our drinking water clean."

By taking advantage of the Forest Service’s fledgling stewardship contracting authority, the Seeley Lake Ranger District accomplished 10 years’ worth of campground upgrades in two field seasons, Love says. And erased miles of backcountry roads to make the mountains more hospitable to grizzly bears. And replaced undersized culverts that blocked the migration of bull trout up Clearwater River tributaries. And opened the forest canopy so goshawks could more easily find their prey.

And yes, he says, provided nearly

$1 million worth of timber to the local lumber mill – the state of Montana’s oldest surviving independent sawmill – while decreasing the lodgepole forest’s susceptibility to an approaching wave of mountain pine beetles.

And that’s nothing to laugh about, says Sanders, and no one does.

Six school buses will pull into Seeley Lake on Wednesday morning, loaded with the governors of Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Wyoming, and 250 camp followers – government officials, foresters, sawmill owners, firefighters and environmental activists.

The Western Governors’ Association won’t be the first group to tour the Clearwater Stewardship Project, although it’ll likely be the largest. Since work began in the mountains north of Seeley Lake two years ago, the project has become the poster child for stewardship contracting, attracting a steady stream of onlookers.

"Everyone wants to see what we’ve done," said Sanders. "Everyone is looking for ways to accomplish good things on the ground that reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and contribute to rural economies. Seeley Lake is a perfect reflection of small rural communities all across the West."

"A lot of people have been up here to see this project," Love said, "and not a person has had any objection. The stewardship authority really allowed us a valuable tool for managing the national forest."

Of the 84 pilot projects initiated nationwide after Congress authorized limited use of stewardship contracting in 1999, the Clearwater project is the most successful. It is also one of the largest. Both the size and the success were by design.

The 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Act provided the Forest Service with the authority to experiment with several new approaches to forest management – all under the stewardship contracting umbrella. For the first time, the agency could exchange goods for services. Any income generated could go right back into work on the national forest where the project occurred.

The agency could award contracts on a "best value" basis, a departure from the usual high-bidder, low-bidder proviso. Timber sold could be designated for cutting by description, rather than by government foresters individually marking each tree. Contracts could be multi-year.

Right away, Love knew he wanted to try stewardship contracting in the upper Clearwater River drainage, 12 miles north of Seeley Lake. "I just thought if it could work here, it could work anywhere," he said.

The scenic values were high, particularly along the heavily traveled Clearwater Loop Road, where the Swan Range reveals itself around every corner. The resident wildlife included all the biggies: grizzly bears, lynx, bull trout, bald eagles, wolves. The forest itself was dense with lodgepole pine, and at risk of bark-beetle attack and extensive stand-replacing wildfire.

Meanwhile, recreation was booming on the Seeley Lake Ranger District, which encompasses a chain of lakes fed by streams that come crashing out of the Swans. Campgrounds had long lists of maintenance needs, starting with replacement of the old-fashioned pit toilets that Love knew were leaking into the lakes.

So the ranger district put out a call for bids on the Clearwater Stewardship Project, and encouraged bidders to bring their creativity and expertise to bear in achieving these objectives:

Reduce the density of roads in the upper Clearwater to make the area more friendly to grizzly bears;

Reduce sources of sediment and improve water quality in a watershed important to bull trout;

Reduce the susceptibility of lodgepole pine stands to death by mountain pine beetle;

Improve wildlife habitat by reintroducing low-intensity fire in the forest;

Eliminate noxious weeds along roadways;

Enhance scenic views along the Clearwater Loop Road; and

Create local jobs.

"The bidders really had to do their work," Love said. "A lot of folks in the timber industry were pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. A number of companies were standing back and waiting to see if it was even going to work. I’m sure there is still a good bit of apprehension."

Right away, Sanders knew he wanted Pyramid Mountain to be the successful bidder. He spent days on his proposal, eventually handing Love a 68-page document.

"We wanted the opportunity to do this," Sanders said. "We wanted to show that this goods-for-service approach could work. We wanted to use local contractors, local loggers, local truckers. We knew that everyone would be watching."

"It’s certainly moving outside the traditional type of work when you start installing vault toilets," he conceded. "However, we feel very comfortable taking on those kind of activities."

"From my perspective, for Pyramid, it’s not so awful different from a lot of other relationships we have with private landowners or state government or the tribes," Sanders said. "We implement the landowner’s objectives, and part of that can be doing other types of work that aren’t directly associated with harvesting trees."

As a small company that owns no forest land, Pyramid’s very survival depends on its ability to develop long-term relationships and implement landowner objectives, said Loren Rose, the company’s comptroller. Pyramid receives 80 percent to 85 percent of its raw materials from private forests owned by a diverse group of people: doctors, lawyers, movie stars, ranchers, bankers, cowboys.

"We do what we say we’ll do, and we do it every day," Sanders said.

Pyramid was also interested in helping the Forest Service gain the public support the agency needs to offer more timber for sale in the national forests. Stewardship contracting, with its emphasis on cooperation and collaboration, provided an opportunity to build public trust, Sanders said.

"It is absolutely critical at this stage in the life of the Forest Service that they become very transparent and very open to this public-private partnership," he said. "For a lot of years, the Forest Service created a lot of frustration in the conservation community and in the timber industry. They just weren’t open. That is absolutely improving."

"What’s been restricting the Forest Service is the trust," Sanders said. "The public wants to know what’s going to happen. What’s it going to look like? When I look out my window, when I hike my favorite trail, when I pick berries next summer, what’s the forest going to look like?"

Pyramid Mountain Lumber bid about $945,000 for the timber offered as part of the Clearwater Stewardship Project – lodgepole pine to be culled from 19 different stands considered at high risk of attack by bark beetles.

Lodgepole is a short-lived species in western Montana. Once stands reach 100 years, bark beetles inevitably and voraciously kill the trees. The resulting deadfall leaves tons of coarse, woody debris on the landscape, which ultimately burns in high-intensity, stand-replacing fires.

"Such combinations of events are fully normal in unmanaged high-elevation landscapes," Love said, "and are needed by many wildlife species: black-backed woodpeckers, lynx and mountain bluebirds."

In the Clearwater drainage, though, nature can no longer be allowed to run its normal course, he said. Houses increasingly encroach upon the forest – houses whose owners expect the Forest Service to protect their property from wildfire.

Thousands of western Montanans spend their weekends, holidays and vacations in the Clearwater, camping, hiking and boating; they, too, want the area protected from beetle kill and fire.

Love was also worried about the potential impact of wildfires on the Clearwater’s grizzly bear and bull trout populations. Grizzlies already have trouble moving across the valley without bumping into homes, campgrounds or people; a stand-replacing fire would only make things worse.

Bull trout wouldn’t have a chance in a post-fire forest; culverts on many roads in the drainage were simply too small to pass the sediment that washes off mountainsides after a big burn. Love wanted those culverts replaced before – not after – a wildfire.

Last winter, loggers cut

4.8 million board feet of timber on 600 acres scattered throughout the upper Clearwater drainage. They built no roads, clearcut no hillsides and used a light-on-the-land approach.

In a departure from the Forest Service’s usual practice, foresters from Pyramid marked the trees in each of the cutting units. Normally, that’s the government’s job. But stewardship contracting allows for "designation by description." Love described the end result he wanted. Sanders’ foresters marked the trees accordingly.

"That automatically saved the Forest Service a year – one field season in terms of when they could get the sale out," Sanders said. "It would have taken them the entire summer to do the marking, which means the sale wouldn’t have been advertised until the following year.

"We have a great deal of experience in tree marking. Our folks have been in the woods for 25 or 30 years. They know the species, they know exactly what the prescription is trying to accomplish, they know specifically which types of trees tend to be more resilient and resistant to insects and disease."

The Forest Service would have relied upon a seasonal work crew, many of whom would have needed training. "They come along by the end of the summer," Sanders said, "but there’s some lag time. Our people were ready to go."

Of course, designation by description is one of the controversial aspects of stewardship contracting – what some environmentalists consider turning over national forests to the timber industry. So in his successful bid, Sanders said Pyramid would hire the Swan Ecosystem Center as independent monitors.

The ecosystem center would have complete access to the cutting units, before, during and after logging. They could cry foul at any moment and work would stop. Everything that happened, Sanders said, would be transparent.

In addition, the Seeley Lake Ranger District assembled a stewardship monitoring committee that included environmentalists, retired foresters, ranchers and a grizzly bear biologist. They, too, had complete access to the project and were encouraged to speak up if anything seemed awry.

Jim Burchfield, director of the Bolle Center for People and Forests at the University of Montana, was chairman of the monitoring committee and will be on hand this week during the Governors’ Association tour.

"I see stewardship contracting as a very positive step," Burchfield said. "Here is this new contracting tool, this new authority that encourages greater productivity and greater community participation in public land management."

But the approach is not a panacea, he said, and "should be engaged in cautiously with a lot of careful evaluation."

"You can’t do all the restoration work needed on public lands paid for by timber sales," Burchfield said. "And there are some places where harvesting shouldn’t happen. Stewardship contracting requires a good sense of priorities on public lands. It requires Forest Service staff who know how to work well engaging people on contentious issues."

The Clearwater Stewardship Project brought together the best of all worlds, he said. A district ranger with a knack for working with the public. A lumber company known for its professionalism and creativity. A community willing to get involved and stay involved. A willingness on the part of all players to trust one another.

The danger, of course, is the temptation to over-manage the forest, Burchfield said. "We’re such a can-do society. The temptation will be to go out and make sure you can get as much done as possible – repair roads, remove culverts, spray for weeds – by cutting as many trees as possible. We might paint ourselves into a corner."

Absolutely, said Love. The need for services has to be genuine. That’s why the Clearwater project was successful, he said. All of the work was already on the ranger district’s to-do list.

To pay for the timber it cut in the Clearwater, Pyramid Mountain took the Seeley Lake Ranger District’s project list and hired local subcontractors who they knew and trusted. In short order, the woods were full of workers.

They sprayed weeds along 12.6 miles of Forest Service roads. They designed and installed seven bridges and arch pipes to take the place of undersized culverts. They installed 18 vault toilets – called "sweet-smelling toilets" by the industry. They rebuilt the Clearwater Lake trailhead and improved Old Alva campground. They rebuilt 15 miles of forest roads to best-management-practice standards. They added nine scenic turnouts on the Clearwater Loop Road. They obliterated about 50 miles of roads.

To date, 10 different local subcontractors have worked on the project.

It’s exactly the sort of local involvement envisioned in 1995 when a group of environmentalists and loggers in the Flathead Valley drafted the first stewardship contracting legislation, said John Gatchell, at the Montana Wilderness Association.

Gatchell’s been on three field trips to the Clearwater project; he’s on a long list of people hoping to be added to this week’s tour scheduled as part of the Western Governors’ Association healthy forests summit.

"What this project shows is that you can bundle objectives on a landscape – a roaded national forest landscape, the upper Clearwater," Gatchell said. "And the bundle can include conservation objectives for fish, wildlife and watersheds, as well as forestry objectives that result in economic value and sawmill jobs."

"The Clearwater project is a great example of what we should be doing all over," he said. "These kind of projects should be blooming all over Montana."

When the governors step off the bus at the first of the logger-built scenic overlooks, they’ll see another forest management success story, Gatchell said. "The great Swan Range will be right there, laid out before them, this big wonderful roadless area managed to retain its primitive values by the Lolo National Forest."

"We can do projects in unroaded areas and still conserve the wild roadless country that makes Montana such a beautiful place," he said. "It’ll all be there – in one big, incredible picture."

Gatchell finds it odd that some conservationists oppose stewardship contracting. "We helped create the idea," he said. "Now some folks want to kill it."

But there is opposition, particularly to stewardship contracting in the form most recently approved by Congress, giving the Forest Service authority to enter into projects for the next 10 years, said Matthew Koehler of Missoula’s Native Forest Network.

"Stewardship contracting robs Peter to pay Paul," Koehler said. "They are doing some good things: removing roads or replacing culverts. But they are going to pay for that good work by letting loggers cut large, commercially valuable trees."

If the nation wants to restore its national forests, Congress needs to make a commitment to invest the necessary time and money, he said. "It’s going to require an expenditure of federal dollars. We can’t pay for restoration by cutting trees."

Koehler hasn’t seen the Clearwater pilot project, but he has seen several smaller stewardship projects in the Bitterroot National Forest that he didn’t like. It’s too soon to extend the contracting authority, he believes.

"There were only 84 pilot projects done nationally," he said. "And only five of those projects have been completed. Only 11 have even been awarded to successful bidders, and only 31 have completed the NEPA (environmental review) process. It’s just too soon to proclaim this a success."

Not so, came the retort from Lolo Forest Supervisor Debbie Austin. Her forest has more stewardship contracts in the works than any other forest nationwide, among them the Clearwater project.

"Stewardship contracting is going to tremendously enhance our ability to implement healthy forest projects," Austin said. "We’re not turning over the forests to timber companies. Frankly, that argument confuses me. The legislation does nothing even close to that. It allows us to implement some different kind of contracts, but those are contracts administered by the federal government. They have all the usual teeth. The Forest Service is still in control of everything that happens."

The Clearwater project was exceptional, she said. "The original intent, purpose and need of the project was very good, and it was implemented to the letter of the purpose and need. I can’t think of anything negative."

"It was pretty risky for both the Forest Service and Pyramid to try something this new," said Sanders, the mill’s resource manager. "But I wanted to make sure the Forest Service had an additional tool in their toolbox. They need these additional options. For too long now, we’ve tried to fit everything in the same square box, and that just hasn’t worked. It was time for a new box."

Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at [email protected]

http://missoulian.com/articles/2003/06/16/news/local/news01.txt