Comments needed on Westside Restoration Project near Bonners

By Reader Staff

The Idaho Panhandle National Forests and Bureau of Land Management are inviting comments on the draft Environmental Assessment for a forest management project proposed near Bonners Ferry.

The Westside Restoration Project is approximately 60,000 acres and is located within Boundary County, encompassing the Myrtle, Snow and Caribou Creek watersheds, and Dodge Peak and White Mountain areas. Proposed restoration work includes timber harvest, prescribed fire and precommercial thinning for fuels reduction and forest health in the wildland-urban interface. 

Developed in collaboration with the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative, the proposed activities would accomplish objectives of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program as well as improvements for wildlife, recreation, aquatics and other resources. The restoration efforts involve working with other landowners, the local community and organizations, agency partners and the public, in an all-lands approach to forest restoration with an emphasis on these watersheds.

Find the Westside Restoration Project Draft Environmental Assessment is posted on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests website: fs.usda.gov/project/?project=56888.

USFS and BLM officials said comments specific to the project and the analysis are valuable. Please comment by Jan. 4, 2021 by submitting electronically to: [email protected]. Put the name of the project in the subject line and please include your name and mailing address. To submit hardcopy comments, please mail them to: Bonners Ferry Ranger District, Attn: Jennifer Anderson, 6286 Main St., Bonners Ferry, ID 83805.

For more information about this project, contact Jennifer Anderson, team leader, at 208-267-6749, or to subscribe to emailed project updates, click the “Get Connected,” tab and “Subscribe to Email Updates” on the project website.

While we have you ...

... if you appreciate that access to the news, opinion, humor, entertainment and cultural reporting in the Sandpoint Reader is freely available in our print newspaper as well as here on our website, we have a favor to ask. The Reader is locally owned and free of the large corporate, big-money influence that affects so much of the media today. We're supported entirely by our valued advertisers and readers. We're committed to continued free access to our paper and our website here with NO PAYWALL - period. But of course, it does cost money to produce the Reader. If you're a reader who appreciates the value of an independent, local news source, we hope you'll consider a voluntary contribution. You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.

You can contribute at either Paypal or Patreon.

Contribute at Patreon Contribute at Paypal

You may also like...

Close [x]

Want to support independent local journalism?

The Sandpoint Reader is our town's local, independent weekly newspaper. "Independent" means that the Reader is locally owned, in a partnership between Publisher Ben Olson and Keokee Co. Publishing, the media company owned by Chris Bessler that also publishes Sandpoint Magazine and Sandpoint Online. Sandpoint Reader LLC is a completely independent business unit; no big newspaper group or corporate conglomerate or billionaire owner dictates our editorial policy. And we want the news, opinion and lifestyle stories we report to be freely available to all interested readers - so unlike many other newspapers and media websites, we have NO PAYWALL on our website. The Reader relies wholly on the support of our valued advertisers, as well as readers who voluntarily contribute. Want to ensure that local, independent journalism survives in our town? You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.