Stop logging and fuels treatments across 7,870 acres of Kootenai National Forest
Swamped
U.S. Forest Service· Kootenai National ForestU.S. Forest Service project page ↗
Forest ServiceWe track this on the agency’s own system of record, where most on-the-ground decisions live.
The groups on this fight
4 groups work Idaho
By footprint, from the same match the STAND matchmaker runs; none is linked to this decision in our record yet. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- Advocates for the West
Works Idaho: represented Western Watersheds Project in the Jarbidge grazing litigation, winning 2004 and 2005 NEPA rulings, a 2009 injunction that grazing-as-usual must end, and a 2011 order closing 17 allotments across the 625,000-acre resource area..
- Center for Biological Diversity
Works Idaho: plaintiff and co-counsel in the February 2025 lawsuit arguing federal wildlife agencies violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and wolverine from the mine..
- Idaho Conservation League
Works Idaho: mobilized Idahoans to file Interior Department comments defending Craters of the Moon during the 2017 national monument review, arguing shrinkage would damage the economies of Blaine, Butte, Minidoka, and Power counties..
- Western Watersheds Project
Works Idaho: has litigated BLM grazing mismanagement across 1.4 million acres of the Jarbidge and Bruneau river canyonlands since the early 2000s, winning injunctions against permit overruns and Ninth Circuit-affirmed orders requiring allotment assessments and stream protections..
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
The Forest Service would authorize logging and vegetation removal across 7,870 acres of Kootenai National Forest.
What’s at risk
Nearly 8,000 acres of Kootenai National Forest face logging and fuels treatments under this proposal. The project targets forest vegetation across a broad area in the name of hazardous fuels reduction and timber production.
If this goes through
If approved, logging and vegetation management would reshape 7,870 acres of Kootenai National Forest, with timber extraction providing a commercial outcome alongside fuels work.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
8 holes in the agency’s own analysis
Make these points, in your own words
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- The EA acknowledges that only three sites were visited by the Forest Health Protection team in 2020, and that observed insect and disease activity at those sites was found to be 'endemic' -- meaning at background, non-outbreak levels. Yet the agency uses that same 2020 field review to justify 8,569 acres of treatment, including over 2,100 acres of large clearcut-with-reserves openings. The gap between a three-site endemic-level finding and a landscape-wide regeneration harvest program is never bridged by additional data or quantitative risk modeling. The agency should either commission a statistically representative stand-level forest health survey across the full 13,525-acre National Forest System footprint, or explain in a supplemental analysis how three endemic-level site visits justify the proposed scale of treatment.
- Table 6 shows 18 opening groups totaling 2,113 acres, with individual groups ranging up to 252 acres (Group L, units 76-78 and 171). Appendix C's Forest Vegetation design feature acknowledges that the warm/dry desired patch size is 20-200 acres and includes a contingency requiring a retention island if layout of Group L exceeds 200 acres. However, the EA provides no analysis of whether any of the other 17 opening groups -- several of which exceed 100 acres -- similarly risk violating Forest Plan patch-size standards for their respective biophysical settings. The agency should analyze each opening group against the applicable biophysical-setting patch-size standard and disclose which groups, if any, require retention islands before the decision is finalized.
- The EA invokes an Emergency Situation Determination under IIJA Section 40807 to bypass the pre-decisional objection process, yet the forest health review that forms the project's scientific basis was conducted in August 2020 -- nearly seven years before the anticipated 2027 implementation date. The document does not explain what changed between 2020 and 2026 that constitutes an emergency justifying elimination of the standard objection period, nor does it disclose the date or scope of the ESD finding. The agency should release the ESD documentation, explain the factual basis for the emergency designation on this project, and clarify why a five-year planning timeline is consistent with emergency authority.
- The EA notes that two previously unknown cultural resources identified in the 2020-2021 Section 106 review 'remain unevaluated' for National Register eligibility, yet the heritage section concludes 'there will be no effects to historic properties due to the proposed activities.' A no-adverse-effect determination cannot be valid when eligibility for two resources has not been established; unevaluated sites cannot be treated as not eligible. The agency should complete eligibility determinations for both unevaluated sites and obtain MTSHPO concurrence before issuing a final decision, or exclude all activities within those sites' areas of potential effect until evaluation is complete.
Show all 10 points from the document
- The tribal consultation section states that letters were sent to the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and that 'no concerns have been raised so far,' but the EA was initiated in spring 2020 and the Section 106 review was completed by early 2026. The document provides no dates for the tribal letters, no record of government-to-government meetings, and no description of how tribal interests in cultural resources, traditional uses, or treaty rights were specifically considered. The agency should disclose the full consultation record, confirm that consultation is complete before signing the FONSI, and describe how any tribal input was incorporated or why it was not.
- The FONSI asserts that road reconstruction and haul traffic will generate only short-term sediment with levels returning to pre-project conditions 'within one to two years,' yet the project includes 78.5 miles of haul road reconstruction, 10.8 miles of new permanent road construction, and a 20-year harvest implementation window. No cumulative or phased sediment loading analysis is presented for the six named drainages -- Libby Creek, Swamp Creek, Elliot Creek, Detgen Creek, Cowell Creek, and Coyote Creek -- despite the document noting that past activities in Elliot Creek's upper watershed already caused measurable changes in substrate size and fine sediment retention. The agency should provide watershed-scale, phased sediment analysis for each affected drainage before issuing a final FONSI.
- The EA designates the project area as partially within a Lincoln County nonattainment area for fine particulate matter, and states that air quality regulations have 'limited the ability of the Kootenai National Forest to use planned ignitions in the area.' Despite this constraint, the proposed action includes approximately 1,653 acres of underburning and pile burning across harvest and slash units, plus 95 acres of ecosystem burns. The EA contains no quantitative smoke modeling, no analysis of cumulative smoke loading on the nonattainment airshed from 20 years of phased burning, and no contingency analysis for what happens to fuel loads if burns must be repeatedly deferred due to air quality restrictions. The agency should provide a phased smoke emissions analysis and a contingency plan addressing fuel accumulation if burning is curtailed.
- The EA states that access to harvest unit 93 and unit 133 requires use of approximately 2.9 miles of Stimson Lumber Company road and that easements 'will be requested,' with only 'temporary use' potentially secured in the meantime. If road use is not granted, the document acknowledges treatments 'would need to be reevaluated and potentially removed.' The FONSI approves these units as part of the selected action without disclosing whether easements have been obtained or what the environmental consequences would be if access is denied and alternative routes or methods must be substituted. The agency should either confirm easement status before finalizing the decision or provide a documented contingency analysis for each affected unit.
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
In the agency’s own words
7,870 acre vegetation management project to address desired conditions and hazardous fuels.
Did the agency answer?
8 issues are on this record. The agency has not published its decision document yet, so each one stays pending until the agency answers.
Issues on the record, awaiting the decision
- PendingThe FONSI asserts that road reconstruction and haul traffic will generate only short-term sediment with levels returning to pre-project conditions 'within one to two years,' yet the project includes 7
The FONSI asserts that road reconstruction and haul traffic will generate only short-term sediment with levels returning to pre-project conditions 'within one to two years,' yet the project includes 78.5 miles of haul road reconstruction, 10.8 miles of new permanent road construction, and a 20-year harvest implementation window. No cumulative or phased sediment loading analysis is presented for the six named drainages -- Libby Creek, Swamp Creek, Elliot Creek, Detgen Creek, Cowell Creek, and Coyote Creek -- despite the document noting that past activities in Elliot Creek's upper watershed already caused measurable changes in substrate size and fine sediment retention. The agency should provide watershed-scale, phased sediment analysis for each affected drainage before issuing a final FONSI.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingThe EA acknowledges that only three sites were visited by the Forest Health Protection team in 2020, and that observed insect and disease activity at those sites was found to be 'endemic' -- meaning a
The EA acknowledges that only three sites were visited by the Forest Health Protection team in 2020, and that observed insect and disease activity at those sites was found to be 'endemic' -- meaning at background, non-outbreak levels. Yet the agency uses that same 2020 field review to justify 8,569 acres of treatment, including over 2,100 acres of large clearcut-with-reserves openings. The gap between a three-site endemic-level finding and a landscape-wide regeneration harvest program is never bridged by additional data or quantitative risk modeling. The agency should either commission a statistically representative stand-level forest health survey across the full 13,525-acre National Forest System footprint, or explain in a supplemental analysis how three endemic-level site visits justify the proposed scale of treatment.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingTable 6 shows 18 opening groups totaling 2,113 acres, with individual groups ranging up to 252 acres (Group L, units 76-78 and 171).
Table 6 shows 18 opening groups totaling 2,113 acres, with individual groups ranging up to 252 acres (Group L, units 76-78 and 171). Appendix C's Forest Vegetation design feature acknowledges that the warm/dry desired patch size is 20-200 acres and includes a contingency requiring a retention island if layout of Group L exceeds 200 acres. However, the EA provides no analysis of whether any of the other 17 opening groups -- several of which exceed 100 acres -- similarly risk violating Forest Plan patch-size standards for their respective biophysical settings. The agency should analyze each opening group against the applicable biophysical-setting patch-size standard and disclose which groups, if any, require retention islands before the decision is finalized.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingThe EA invokes an Emergency Situation Determination under IIJA Section 40807 to bypass the pre-decisional objection process, yet the forest health review that forms the project's scientific basis was
The EA invokes an Emergency Situation Determination under IIJA Section 40807 to bypass the pre-decisional objection process, yet the forest health review that forms the project's scientific basis was conducted in August 2020 -- nearly seven years before the anticipated 2027 implementation date. The document does not explain what changed between 2020 and 2026 that constitutes an emergency justifying elimination of the standard objection period, nor does it disclose the date or scope of the ESD finding. The agency should release the ESD documentation, explain the factual basis for the emergency designation on this project, and clarify why a five-year planning timeline is consistent with emergency authority.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingThe EA notes that two previously unknown cultural resources identified in the 2020-2021 Section 106 review 'remain unevaluated' for National Register eligibility, yet the heritage section concludes 't
The EA notes that two previously unknown cultural resources identified in the 2020-2021 Section 106 review 'remain unevaluated' for National Register eligibility, yet the heritage section concludes 'there will be no effects to historic properties due to the proposed activities.' A no-adverse-effect determination cannot be valid when eligibility for two resources has not been established; unevaluated sites cannot be treated as not eligible. The agency should complete eligibility determinations for both unevaluated sites and obtain MTSHPO concurrence before issuing a final decision, or exclude all activities within those sites' areas of potential effect until evaluation is complete.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingThe tribal consultation section states that letters were sent to the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and that 'no concerns have been raised so far,' but the EA
The tribal consultation section states that letters were sent to the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and that 'no concerns have been raised so far,' but the EA was initiated in spring 2020 and the Section 106 review was completed by early 2026. The document provides no dates for the tribal letters, no record of government-to-government meetings, and no description of how tribal interests in cultural resources, traditional uses, or treaty rights were specifically considered. The agency should disclose the full consultation record, confirm that consultation is complete before signing the FONSI, and describe how any tribal input was incorporated or why it was not.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingThe EA designates the project area as partially within a Lincoln County nonattainment area for fine particulate matter, and states that air quality regulations have 'limited the ability of the Kootena
The EA designates the project area as partially within a Lincoln County nonattainment area for fine particulate matter, and states that air quality regulations have 'limited the ability of the Kootenai National Forest to use planned ignitions in the area.' Despite this constraint, the proposed action includes approximately 1,653 acres of underburning and pile burning across harvest and slash units, plus 95 acres of ecosystem burns. The EA contains no quantitative smoke modeling, no analysis of cumulative smoke loading on the nonattainment airshed from 20 years of phased burning, and no contingency analysis for what happens to fuel loads if burns must be repeatedly deferred due to air quality restrictions. The agency should provide a phased smoke emissions analysis and a contingency plan addressing fuel accumulation if burning is curtailed.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
- PendingThe EA states that access to harvest unit 93 and unit 133 requires use of approximately 2.9 miles of Stimson Lumber Company road and that easements 'will be requested,' with only 'temporary use' poten
The EA states that access to harvest unit 93 and unit 133 requires use of approximately 2.9 miles of Stimson Lumber Company road and that easements 'will be requested,' with only 'temporary use' potentially secured in the meantime. If road use is not granted, the document acknowledges treatments 'would need to be reevaluated and potentially removed.' The FONSI approves these units as part of the selected action without disclosing whether easements have been obtained or what the environmental consequences would be if access is denied and alternative routes or methods must be substituted. The agency should either confirm easement status before finalizing the decision or provide a documented contingency analysis for each affected unit.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own analysis, quote verified against the document
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