Viewpoint: Mud Creek vegetation management intensifies warming

Michael Hoyt

The Bitterroot National Forest notified the public of its gigantic Mud Creek Project in September 2019.  Such a notification is required by law to give members of the public a chance to comment.

And the public did just that.  Almost 150 individuals and organizations offered constructive comments, including notice that the Agency had overlooked specific legal requirements for all Forest Service projects.

Although the Agency corrected some project deficiencies, it ignored others. The resulting shortcomings led to conservation groups filing suit in early 2024.

Over 20 years, this 48,486-acre project would commercially log 13,700 acres — including 4,800 acres of clear-cuts in areas with mature and old-growth forests — and would intentionally burn an additional 40,360 acres. Also included is the intent to bulldoze 43 miles of new roads to facilitate logging.

The level of disturbance that this project will inflict on one of the wildest places in the Bitterroot Mountains is shocking. Not only will it disturb the well-being of wildlife, but it will spew vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.

Approximately 85% of the carbon stored in a tree is released to the atmosphere when it is logged – 46% is logging residue, 22% is mill residue, and 17% is transportation required to deliver the finished product for sale.  That 85% does not include the amount of CO2 released during the logging process – each gallon of fuel releases approximately 20 pounds of CO2, plus, soil disturbance releases even more CO2.

Humanity is already suffering the consequences of global warming. We cannot continue to mindlessly continue business as usual and expect to survive. The Mud Creek Project uses the euphemism “vegetation” to obscure what it really is, a logging project that will release vast quantities of CO2 from trees and the soil and intensify global warming.

Michael Hoyt is an environmental researcher based in Corvallis