U.S. Forest Service acting forest supervisor Drew Stroberg gave an update at Tuesday’s St. Louis County board meeting in Duluth.
He talked about an expansion of the clearing along the Echo trail as well as the amount of logging in the Superior National Forest.
Stroberg said the Forest Service oversaw 35,000 acres of treatment on the Superior National Forest including selling 56 million board feet of timber.
“We were able to achieve our target on that,” said Stroberg. He added that 1.8 million trees were planted this year.
The Forest Service has signed agreement with the Nature Conservancy to collaborate on wildfire reduction program.
Of the $10 million available, the Forest Service agreement with the Nature Conservancy is for $6.5 million.
“This includes work on the Echo Trail,” said Stroberg He said the Forest Service is also working with St. Louis County with timber sales where there are common goals. There is also an agreement with DNR.
“And 15% of our target is with them,” said Stroberg He also reviewed the first in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area this year due to lightning strikes.
“We end up burning about 66,000 acres in the Boundary Waters, the vast majority of that is in St. Louis County,” said Stroberg.
He thanked St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay for help with evacuations due to fire behavior.
“We’re trying to learn from this because it’s a matter of when not if this will happen again,” said Stroberg.
During the fire season, the Forest Service put a contingency line along portions of the Echo Trail about 100 feet off the road to keep the fire from crossing the road.
Stroberg said one million board feet of timber came out of those cuts.
“The log deck on Moose Loop is pretty impressive,” said Stroberg.
“We’re going to go over, actually, we go 300 feet off, both sides of (the Echo Trail) in the coming years,” said Stroberg.
He also explained that the agency is still working on changes to the BWCA permit system and cancellations.
The system would change from currently getting 100 percent of the fee back for cancellations up to three days prior.
The new proposal would be if you cancel up 28 days in advance get 50% refund, cancel between three and 28 days and get 25% and if within three days no refund.
“This should help people cancel their permits so we can get more people into the woods,” said Stroberg.
The cancellation policy will take effect early in 2027.
Stroberg said the Forest Service is looking to a do a plan amendment, a major undertaking.
“We’re supposed to update every 15 years but that never happens,” said Stroberg.
The forest plan was last updated in 2004 but it didn’t change the BWCA plan from 1998.
“Obviously there are some things that need updating,” said Stroberg. “We’re hoping to get a plan amendment done by 2030, it’s a multi-year process.”
Stroberg said the amount of monies that come to county governments through the Thye-Blatnik Act passed in 1948 will be updated as well.
The appraisal of the federal land values are updated every 10 years and were last done in 2018.
Stroberg said the Forest Service is still trying to acquire 82,000 acres of state school trust lands in the BWCA.
“We’ve been working with the state DNR for decades now to get state lands acquired and we still have steps we have to go through,” said Stroberg.
That includes the state attorney general filing condemnation actions on those lands.
“Weve been waiting for 10 months for the state to do that I’ve been told it’s going to happen any day and then it’s going to take about a year to do that.”
He said the Forest Service is reviewing the titles to those lands.
“Several members up in community of Ely pushing to get (the land swap) done and across the finish line,” said Stroberg.
