Timeline
2012, January 3. IPNF draft forest plan released for public comment. On March 21, the comment period was extended until May 7.
2011, January. USGS estimates that floods carried 352,000 pounds of lead into Lake Coeur d’Alene on January 18. (Flooding spiked lead levels in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Spokesman Review, March 24).
2010, July. The Chief of the Forest Service announced the National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change and the Performance Scorecard.
2010, March. USFS issued a second notice of intent to revise the Forest Plan using the 1982 procedures under the 2000 Planning Rule.
2009, Dec 18. USDA reinstated the 2000 planning rule in the Federal Register, allowing use of planning rules in effect prior to 2000 (the 1982 planning rule). USFS decided to use the 1982 rule for the IPNF plan revisions.
2009, June. Courts invalidated 2008 Planning Rule.
2008. Idaho Roadless Rule: Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; Applicability to the National Forests in Idaho; Final Rule and ROD (October 2008) (36 CFR 294 Subpart C). Conservationists challenged this rule, and the case is now before the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.
2008, April. New Planning Rule issued.
2007, Mar 30. Court injunction suspended the IPNF Forest Plan revision activities under the 2005 Planning Rule.
2006. May 12. USFS released a draft Comprehensive Evaluation Report (CER) and proposed plans for both the IPNF and Kootenai NF. CER was issued under the 2005 Planning Rule and included the analysis and evaluation of conditions and trends for both Forests under the existing plans, and supplemented the AMS in documenting the need for changing the 1987 Forest Plans. The CER added additional topics for revision: Minerals, Designated Wilderness Management and Wilderness Study Areas, Facilities, Research Natural Areas (RNAs), Heritage Resources, Scenery Management, Lands, Special Areas (SAs), Wild and Scenic Rivers, and Range.
2005. National Academies of Science published Superfund and Mining Megasites: Lessons from the Coeur d’Alene River Basin. The committee of scientists found that scientific and technical practices used by EPA for decision making regarding human health risks at the Coeur d’Alene River basin Superfund site are generally sound. The exceptions are minor. However, for EPA’s decision making regarding environmental protection, the committee has substantial concerns, particularly regarding the effectiveness and long-term protection of the selected remedy.
2005, January. Planning Rule issued eliminating the need for an EIS.
2003, March. USFS releases its Analysis of the Management Situation, and established the need for revising management direction on seven topics: Vegetation, Fire Risk, Timber Production, Wildlife, Watersheds and Aquatic Species, Inventoried Roadless Areas, Recommended Wilderness Areas, and Access and Recreation.
2002, April. USFS published a notice of intent (NOI) in the Federal Register, announcing the revision of the Land Management Plan (LMP) for the IPNF.
2002. EPA issued a record of decision (ROD) that addressed the entire 1,500-square-mile project area, excluding the box (which was the subject of earlier RODs). This ROD contained a “final remedy” to address contamination-related human health risks and an “interim remedy” to begin to address ecologic risks.
2000. USFS began working on revising the 1987 IPNF Forest Plan. The plans are to cover a 10 to 15 year duration provided by the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).
1999. President Clinton directed the Forest Service to undertake a comprehensive process to protect roadless areas in the National Forest System.
1999, March. Committee of Scientists published a report entitled, “Sustaining the Peoples’ Lands: Recommendations for Stewardship of the National Forests and Grasslands into the Next Century” (USDA 1999). This report emphasizes ecosystem management and the need for sustainability of all forest lands. The USFS “has incorporated this guidance by using accepted scientific data and recovery plans as the basis for developing resource-specific requirements.” IPNF DEIS p. 13.
1998. EPA began applying Superfund requirements beyond the original Bunker Hill 21-square-mile box boundaries to areas throughout the 1,500-square- mile Coeur d’Alene River basin project area.
1998. USFS proposed a moratorium on building roads into roadless areas.
1998. USFS publicly acknowledged the 156 National Forests contained 380,000 miles of “system” roads, and revealed yet another 70,000 miles of “ghost” or nonsystem roads. The Forest Service estimated the maintenance backlog on these logging roads at $8 billion.
1996-1997. Battles in the House and Senate over funding logging roads and the subsidy to the timber industry. In 1996 a budget amendment succeeded in cutting funding, prompting Speaker Gingrich to call a revote (the resulting 211-211 tie defeated the amendment). In 1997 the budget amendment to cut subsidies for logging road was replaced by a substitute, weakened amendment that passed 210-209. In the Senate, Sen. Bryan (D-Nev) highlighted logging roads on the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in calling for an end to the logging road subsidy. The vote was 50-50 (with Vice President Gore unavailable to break the tie vote, the corporate subsidy continued).
1997. Coeur d’Alene National Forest extensive logging road networks featured in New York Times story focused on Congressional battles over funding logging road programs. Sylvan Roads That Lead to Bitter Protests. May 23, 1997.
1980s-1990s. Many timber mills close in Northwest, with economic dislocation for rural communities.
1996, March. USGS measured lead concentrations in floodwaters of the Coeur d’Alene River, estimating over 1 million pounds of lead flowed into Idaho’s second largest lake, Lake Coeur d’Alene, in a single day of that flood event.
1995, July 28. INFISH: Interim Strategies for Managing Fish-producing Watersheds in Eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, Western Montana and portions of Nevada (Inland Native Fish Strategy). This interim direction is in the form of riparian management objectives, standards and guidelines, and monitoring requirements. This action amends the management direction established in the Regional Guides and all existing land and resource management plans for the area covered by the assessment. IPNF forest plan amended.
1995, June 29. Clinton Administration and Congress agreed to the “Salvage Rider” suspending altogether the appeals process – and citizen oversight of the National Forests.
1994. Clinton Administration begins the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan (ICBEMP)
1993. President Bill Clinton holds “Forest Summit” in Portland, OR. Conservationists request (and are denied) that the summit expand beyond the “Westside” spotted owl forests to including forests of the interior Columbia Basin and Northern Rockies.
1992. Arkansas-Idaho Land Exchange Act. Through this land exchange, the IPNF acquired a total of 10,026 acres of land (9,114.44 acres from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and 912.1 acres from Potlatch Corporation). In turn, the IPNF disposed of 7,978.91 acres to Potlatch Corporation. The Act directed the IPNF to manage those lands acquired within the boundaries of the BLM's Grandmother Mountain Wilderness Study Area to preserve the suitability for wilderness until the Forest completes a wilderness study as part of its Forest Plan revision process. IPNF forest plan was amended on Dec. 7, 1994.
1992, Aug 21. USFS reaches an agreement with American Rivers on an amendment that clarified the Forest's intent to protect eligible Wild and Scenic Rivers until suitability studies were completed. IPNF forest plan amended.
1991. Inland Empire Public Lands Council launched “Forest Watch” to empower local citizens in scrutinizing individual timber sales. USFS began withdrawing timber sales. Timber cuts began to plummet. The response from the timber industry and its Congressional supporters was an effort to weaken or eliminate the citizen appeals process.
1991. GAO reports that by the mid-1980s, the U.S. timber industry center of gravity had shifted from Northwest to Southeast.
1991, August. Bush Administration forces out Regional Forester, John Mumma, for being unable to meet timber targets. Mumma was not alone – others, including Clearwater National Forest Win Green, suffered a similar fate. “Combat biologists” and resource specialists who found themselves standing between the trees and interests of the timber companies -- such as Idaho Panhandle hydrologist Al Isaacson -- were also forced out. Other professionals just left the Forest Service when they could rather than play a hand in the corruption.
1991, Mar 12. USFS Regional Forester issued a Decision to Partition the allowable sale quantity (ASQ) into two non-interchangeable components, the quantity that would come from inventoried roadless areas and the amount that would come from existing roaded areas. IPNF forest plan amended.
1989. Plum Creek (the logging arm of Burlington Northern Railroad) spun off as a free-standing timber and real estate development company.
1989. BLM study indicated that over 10,000 acres of wetlands along the Coeur d’Alene River had been severely impacted by mine wastes, posing a persistent threat to aquatic organisms, wildlife.
1989, Sept 8. IPNF Forest Plan amended to incorporate “Idaho Panhandle National Forests Water Quality Monitoring Program: Appendix JJ, as agreed to by MOU with Idaho State. IPNF forest plan amended.
1988, December. Conservationists filed federal lawsuit challenging the USFS over roadless areas in the IPNF forest plan. In Idaho Conservation League v. Mumma, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Forest Service’s position that Forest Plans were plans to do more planning (“programmatic documents”), and as such the agency was not required to disclose information sufficient for making final decisions about roadless areas: decisions on roadless areas would be made later.
1988, August. USFS rules against conservationists challenge to the IPNF forest plan on failure to adequately study roadless areas.
1988, August. Chief of the Forest Service and members of the Idaho Congressional delegation keynote timber rally at Farragut State Park, north Idaho.
1988, May. USFS informed conservationists that the roadless issue would be separated from the other 24 issues in the appeal, and processed separately and rapidly (the agency’s decision on the remainder of conservationists’ appeal took another six years).
1988, May. Timber industry staged rallies and logging truck convoy, including convoy down the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana to provide logs to a timber mill in Darby, Montana.
1988. March. USFS agreed to stop logging activities in roadless areas on the IPNF, but denied conservationists’ requests to stop logging streamsides (riparian zones).
1987, September. Conservationists appeal all three north Idaho forest plans: IPNF, Clearwater, and Nez Perce.
1987, September. USFS issues final decision on the IPNF Land Management Plan.
1987. Idaho Congressional delegation orders Forest Supervisors in north Idaho NFs to stop planning. Sen. McClure directs that high timber targets (allowable sale quantity or “ASQ”) be inserted into the record of decision for each of the 3 north Idaho forest plans, with automatic increases at the end of the 10 to15 planning period. IPNF ASQ set at 250 million board feet (mmbf) with an additional 30mmbf in pulp and salvage, and an automatic increase to 350mmbf at the end of the period covered by the forest plan.
1985. Sen. McClure and top officials in the Reagan Administration suspend forest planning in the three north Idaho National Forests (IPNF, Clearwater, and Nez Perce) pending completion of an Idaho timber supply analysis.
1985. U.S. House began holding hearings on USFS road-building program, concluded that capital investment for new logging roads (the “Forest Roads Program”) is costly to taxpayers and environmentally damaging, a cuts appropriation. In 1985 and in subsequent years, conference committee, Sen. McClure and Sen. Hatfield succeeded in again securing hundreds of millions of dollars each year as a subsidy for the timber industry
1983. EPA designated 21 square miles surrounding the Bunker Hill complex as a Superfund Site. The basis for this listing was high levels of metals (including lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc) in the local environment and elevated blood lead levels in children in communities near the metal-refining and smelter complex. EPA appropriated $50 million for the clean-up. Idaho provided $5.4 million in matching funds. Idaho sued Gulf Resources and Chemicals Company of Houston, TX. In a controversial out-of-court settlement, the state accepted $4.5 million.
1982. Planning Rule procedures issued - Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) at 36 CFR 219.10(g), 1982 require the identification of areas suitable for timber production and the ASQ from those lands. In addition, the procedures require the analysis of the supply and demand situation for resource commodities.
1980. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) also known as the Superfund Act enacted to address risks associated with chemical emergencies as well as abandoned hazardous waste sites.
1977. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rupert Cutler ordered the Forest Service to undertake a second nationwide roadless area review and evaluation (RARE II). Deficiencies prompted a lawsuit, California v. Block that led to an injunction halting development of forty-eight roadless areas allocated to nonwilderness. During the Reagan Administration, the re-evaluation of roadless areas was assigned to forest planning. Congress responded by passing wilderness bills, state-by-state, in 1984 in order to release nonprotected areas for further development and also further study for wilderness protection. Sen. McClure successfully stopped most state wilderness bills in the Senate, forcing major concessions in the House on a wilderness bill for Idaho. Congress eventually passed wilderness bills for most of the affected states – except the adjoining states of Montana and Idaho: the core wildlands complex of the Northern Rockies. Efforts in subsequent years to pass bills for these two states also proved unsuccessful.
1976. National Forest Management Act (NFMA)
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1975. Monongahela case (Izaak Walton League v. Butz). In 1975, the Fourth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals reaffirmed a lower court ruling (that held clearcutting to be illegal under the 1897 Organic Act, prompting NFMA.
1974. Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA)
1973. The IPNF was created as an administrative unit by combining major portions of three individually proclaimed national forests: the Kaniksu, the Coeur d’Alene, and the St. Joe
1973. Endangered Species Act enacted.
1972. Clean Water Act enacted.
1971. Senator Frank Church (D-ID), chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands, held investigative hearings in 1971 on timber practices in the National Forests. The subcommittee adopted the so-called Church Guidelines on timber practices directing where and how cutting should take place.
1970s onward: NP grant lands massively overcut by corporations that control titles to the NP grant lands (e.g., Champion, Burlington Northern/Plum Creek, Potlatch, Boise Cascade, Weyerhaeuser). Create a “hellacious hole” in timber supply.
1970. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established to protect human health and the natural environment.
1969. National Environmental Policy Act. Requires analysis of projects to insure the anticipated effects upon all resources within the project area are considered prior to project implementation (40 CFR 1502.16).
1968. Bitterroot study (“Bolle Report”) noted the Forest Service’s overriding concern for sawtimber production” and “economic irrationality” of aspects of the timber program.
1968. Mining Companies constructed settling ponds recommended by Dr. Ellis 36 years earlier, in 1932, ending the practice of dumping mine wastes directly into streams. This does not end heavy metals flushing into streams.
1964. Wilderness Act enacted.
1960. Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act. Affirmed the application of sustainability to the broad range of resources over which the USDA Forest Service has responsibility.
1948. 100 swans die, out of an estimated 400-600 that migrated into the wetlands upstream from Lake Coeur d’Alene.
1940. FDR’s Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace warned against overcutting Northwest’s forests: "The Grays Harbor, Puget Sound, Lower Columbia, Klamath County and Deschutes districts in your region are headed directly toward trouble that hit Pennsylvania, the Lake States, and the Missouri Ozarks."
1932. Dr. M.M. Ellis, a scientist then working through the Dept of Interior's Bureau of Fisheries led a team that produced a "Special Scientific Report" covering impacts of mining on fisheries and other aquatic life in the Coeur d’Alene Basin. Ellis submitted his report to the Legislature-created Lake Commission in 1932. Ellis found no live fish, plankton, or zooplankton, bottom fauna between the confluence of the South Fork and the North Fork and Lake Coeur d’Alene. Ellis concluded that mine wastes had eradicated life from the water. Fish exposed to the river water would perish in less than 72 hours. Tailings "not only made that river barren, they are threatening all of the lakes adjacent to the Coeur d'Alene River, and constitute a menace to Coeur d'Alene Lake." Tailings combined with factors such as clearcut logging to reduce trout populations in the Lake. Mining slimes covered the lake bottom in varying degrees from the mouth of the river to the town of Coeur d'Alene, and down the Spokane River, as far as Greenacres, Washington.
Ellis recommended the settling system in use by the Sullivan Mine at Kimberly, B.C. "There is but one solution for this pollution problem as far as fisheries are concerned, namely the exclusion of all mine waste from the Coeur d'Alene River." Not until 1968 did the mining companies build the settling ponds.
John Hoskins of the U.S. Public Health Service assessed lead levels in Lake Coeur d'Alene. The survey found that "under normal conditions the Lake water is practically saturated continuously with lead in solution."
1930. Coeur d’Alene Press editor H.F. Kretchman expanded newspaper coverage against pollution, and, in a speech to the Izaak Walton League, foretold the destruction of Lake Coeur d'Alene if matters were not taken in hand, predicting the lake would become a "replica of the mother stream which now pours day by day its slimy waters into this God-given settling tank." Press encouraged the construction of settling ponds as had been done by the Sullivan Mining Company in Kimberly, B.C., because dumping was prohibited by Canadian Law.
1929. The Coeur d'Alene Press, a progressive newspaper at the time, began a series of articles on mining pollution, illustrating the impact of damages in human and environmental terms, and the potential threat to Lake Coeur d'Alene. City editor John Coe wrote of the river valley: "A picture of desolation. It is a veritable 'Valley of Death' in a "Paradise Lost.''
1926. Bunker Hill began building a zinc smelter near Kellogg.
1916. Bunker Hill began construction of a lead-silver smelter at Kellogg.
1914. The Army Corp of Engineers examined shoaling of the Coeur d'Alene river channel by tailings, and noted a milky material suspended in the water. The river had a varying depth of 15-40 feet. 18 years later, sediment build-up had reduced that depth to 12-15 feet.
1911. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, George Kemmerer, in a report on fisheries of the Northwest, states that the "muddy waters" of the river "are so laden with silt that they may be traced far out into the clear water of the lake."
1910. Big Blow-up in north Idaho (part of massive conflagrations in the Northwest) and role of the fledgling Forest Service in fighting those fires impacts forest decisions nationally, including fire-fighting policies.
1907 – March 4. President Roosevelt establishes the “Midnight” forests under pressure from Congress: 16 million acres of new National Forests in six states, including Idaho.
1905. Congress enacted the Transfer Act (33 Stat. 628), replacing the Dept of Interior with the U.S. Forest Service in the Dept. of Agriculture as the federal agency responsible for Forest Reserves, and changing the name to “National Forests.”
1903. Weyerhaeuser incorporated Potlatch Corp (with major holdings in north Idaho, Arkansas, and the Midwest).
1900. Teddy Roosevelt became president, eventually launched investigations into land frauds, and established about half of the current National Forest System of 191 million acres.
1900, January 3. James Hill sold over 1 million acre of NP grant lands in Pacific Northwest to St. Paul neighbor Frederick Weyerhaeuser (story in St. Paul Pioneer Press)
1899. Mt. Rainier National Park created, containing a provision allowing JP Morgan, JJ Hill, and F Weyerhaeuser interests to exchange a million acres of the checkerboard estate for rich timberlands in western Oregon and north Idaho.
1897. Congress created the “Organic Act” recognizing two uses for the Forest Reserves: protecting waters to “...provide favorable conditions of water flow...” and providing a continuous supply of timber. Contemporary concerns focused on land exchange provisions contained within this law.
1891. Congress passed what is now called the Forest Reserve Act, authorizing Presidents to establish Forest Reserves from the public domain. President Harrison established the first Forest Reserve near Yellowstone National Park. The Reserves were managed by the Dept of Interior (not the Forest Service).
1890. Idaho becomes a state.
1889. Executive Order with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe compensating the Tribe for loss of ceded lands.
1884-1885. Mining camps established on Canyon Creek and at Wardner on Milo creek. The Coeur d'Alene Basin became one of the largest areas of mining in the world. Since the late 1880s, mining activities in the Upper Coeur d'Alene Basin contributed an estimated 100 million tons of mine waste to the river system. Over time, these wastes have been distributed throughout more than 160 miles of the Coeur d'Alene and Spokane Rivers, lakes, and floodplains.
1883. Gold discovered on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.
1876. Congress funds a study of America’s forests, and hires physician and forest conservationist Franklin B. Hough as the nation’s first forest agent. Dr. Hough became the first employee of what would become the Forest Service, and his work created the foundation for the nation’s forest protection policies.
1873 Executive Order with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, creating a reservation.
1864. Seminal book on human ecology published by George Perkins Marsh: Man and Nature. Marsh compared ancient societies’ destruction of Mediterranean forests with destruction underway in New England’s forests, and questioned whether human species could survive over time.
1864 - July 2. Pres. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant – creating a federal corporation and conditionally granting 40 million acres of public land in a 120-mile-wide checkboard swath from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. Among the corporations based on Abd Lincoln’s railroad grant are Weyerhaeuser, Potlatch, Boise Cascade, Plum Creek, and BNSF.
1855. Steven’s Treaty and Hellgate Treaty, followed by wars between the United States and Indian Tribes.
1846. White settlement began with the establishment of a Catholic mission at Cataldo. The Mission still stands, and is the oldest building in Idaho – surrounded by wetlands heavily polluted with mine wastes.
1805 – August 12. Lewis & Clark expedition first stepped foot out of the United States and into the Columbia River watershed.
1792. Capt. Robert Gray sailed a private ship, the Columbia Rediviva, into a river later named “Columbia” after the boat. This “discovery” was used as a basis for the United States’ claims to the Pacific Northwest.
1000 B.C. Seedlings start to grow on the IPNF - today these are old growth trees estimated at 3,000 years old.
Time immemorial - Indians live in dynamic equilibrium with the rivers and lakes.