Protect the White Pine Scenic Drive and the Remnants of Older Forests!

Speak out against the White Pine Project, 2,000-acre timber sale on the Palouse Ranger District

The White Pine Project is a proposed timber sale near the popular Palouse Divide ski area and along the west side of the White Pine Scenic Drive. The Forest Service is proposing to log 2,000 acres of land and build 2 miles of new permanent road as well as 15 miles of so-called temporary roads. The Palouse Ranger District has almost no old growth and this timber sale will further reduce the amount of older, mature trees. Further, the Forest Service proposes cutting in streamside buffers , ostensibly for fuel reduction. The Forest Service claims that cutting streamsides will reduce fuel reduction, but streamside plants are often in wetter environments and cutting closer to the stream can unleash more sediment into the stream.

Twenty years ago, the Forest Service authorized the White Pine Timber Sale with a more detailed environmental impact statement because of the sale’s significant effects. Twenty years later, in the same area not yet fully recovered, the Forest Service has analyzed the White Pine Project with a shorter and less thorough environmental assessment, concluding there would be no significant impact.

This sale will log some of the land set aside for old-growth protection in earlier proposals as well as older stands important for fishers. The environmental assessment fails to discuss this rare species even though the Forest Service has produced maps in other contexts that depict potential fisher habitat in this area. If fishers are extirpated from this area, it is because of logging, and more logging will preclude any reoccupation or recovery.

Write Ranger Stefani Spencer here and suggest that she withdraw this sale and prepare a more detailed environmental impact statement or select the no-action alternative. Comments can be mailed to Stefani Spencer, Palouse District Ranger, 1700 Highway 6, Potlatch, ID 83855, Comments can be emailed to stefani.spencer@usda.gov or you can use the comment form below.