Rocky Smith, a Denver-based forest management analyst and consultant of more than 40 years, is voicing “strong concerns” with the “Lower North-South Vegetation Management” project, 116,600 acres of scientifically-contested “wildfire fuel reduction” logging in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest in the Front Range mountains of Jefferson and Douglas Counties, 87,000 acres within protected Colorado Roadless Areas.
Smith’s two sets of comments, submitted to the South Platte Ranger District on February 19 and March 18, have been endorsed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Central Colorado Wilderness Coalition, Colorado Mountain Club Denver Group, EcoFlight, Environment Colorado, Rocky Mountain Wild, San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, Western Watersheds Project, and Wild Connections. Also signing on is small organic farmer, Deanna Meyer, whose property abuts the project area (see “Farmer Bordering National Forest Opposes ‘Emergency’ Logging That Studies Show Will Make Her Home Vulnerable to Wildfire”).
Though Smith supports some light “thinning” of small-diameter trees in certain lower-elevation ponderosa pine stands, he opposes thinning in lodgepole and spruce-fir forests “outside the home ignition zone.” And his main concern with the “Lower North-South Vegetation Management” project is that it could have “strong adverse impacts on soils, watersheds, habitat for a variety of species…and critical habitat for three species listed as threatened under ESA [Endangered Species Act].” Due to potentially “significant” impacts, he calls for an Environmental Impact Statement for the project, which “the law and its implementing regulations require.”
Logging would involve clearcuts up to 40 acres including within 87,813 acres of Colorado Roadless Areas, mostly in Denver’s drinking water supply area, including: Green Mountain (11,100 acres), Gunbarrel (7,700 acres), Lost Creek East (14,900 acres), Rampart West (28,800 acres), Sheep Rock (7,900 acres); Thunder Butte (7,400 acres); and part of Rampart East (the majority of 28,300 acres).
In particular, Rampart East, according to an earlier analysis by the Forest Service, is “the largest and least human-impacted area remaining in the Rampart Range, and forms both a critical core area for wildlife at the edge of the rapidly growing Interstate 25 (I-25) urban corridor.” While the Bear Creek portion is a “near-pristine example of a Colorado front range transition zone between montane and plains ecosystem”.
“Any treatment, but especially mechanical treatment,” Smith notes, “could have strongly adverse impacts to roadless area characteristics.”
Smith and endorsing organizations contend that bulldozing roads into forests will “cause adverse changes to the landscape, from channeling soil and water delivery to streams to fragmenting wildlife habitat and facilitating undesired human use…the Pike-San Isabel National Forest already has a major problem with illegal off-route use of motor vehicles.”
The comments also warns how “soil disturbance creates areas for introduction and spread of non-native vegetation, i.e., noxious weeds,” which studies have shown can hasten the spread of wildfire.
Smith and supporting environmental groups calls for analysis on impacts to resident wildlife listed under the Endangered Species Act, including the Mexican spotted owl, Pawnee montane skipper, Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, and threatened Canada lynx, along with the Aberts squirrel, Pygmy nuthatch, Goshawk, and Flammulated owl.
“Removal of trees means reduction of nesting areas for avian species and reduction of hiding and thermal cover for big game,” Smith cautions.
Instead of focusing on logging carbon-storing public forests, Smith states that the Forest Service should “emphasize treatment in the home ignition zone” and “areas immediately adjacent to homes and other structures,” pointing to the agency’s own research showing that “structures will not ignite from a distance of more than about thirty meters.”
Eco-Integrity Alliance 