ASSOCIATED PRESS
WEST YELLOWSTONE – U.S. Forest Service officials are proposing a logging and prescribed burning project across more than nine square miles just west of Yellowstone National Park.
The agency says the proposal would reduce wildfire risk along evacuation routes through the Custer Gallatin National Forest. It also would restore aspen and whitebark pine trees north of Hebgen Lake and West Yellowstone, Montana.
Twenty-one miles of temporary roads could be built. Officials say the amount of habitat available to threatened grizzly bears would be temporarily reduced.
There is a 30-day public comment period on the proposal.
A separate timber sale involving four square miles southwest of Hebgen Lake has been on hold. A judge last year sided with environmental groups that say logging in the area could threaten grizzly bears and Canada lynx.
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