COEUR d'ALENE - The Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation board will hear from the public today about logging in a shoreline trail area within Farragut State Park.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game, with approval from the Parks and Recreation board, would like to continue logging Douglas fir on approximately 165 acres.

The logging, which started as part of a ponderosa pine restoration project, is projected to resume in late 2014, said Barry Rosenberg, a former executive director of Kootenai Environmental Alliance. The cuts would take place in a shoreline trail area in the southeast corner of the park from Buttonhook Bay to Jokuhlaup Point.

The Idaho Department of Lands is administering the cuts.

A group calling itself Friends of Farragut and KEA oppose any more of the logging in the park.

"We're really looking at this (today's public forum) as our last chance," said Adrienne Cronebaugh, KEA's executive director.

To date, 3 acres in the area was clear cut, and another 10 acres thinned. Fish and Game owns the parcels.

The public forum is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at the Best Western Coeur d'Alene Inn.

Presentations will be made by Rosenberg and others who are following the logging, said Tom Crimmins, a Hayden Lake resident and the chairman of the Parks and Recreation board.

Crimmins said the board won't be making any decisions today, though the body could halt further cuts.

"I think we need to be aware of the recreation concerns," Crimmins said. He said major cutting shouldn't be done.

The logging has been done to clear the way for native ponderosa pine, and possibly some white pine, he said.

Crimmins said Douglas fir, white fir and some infected Ponderosa pine were targeted in the earlier cuts. There also has been some removal of understory vegetation.

"I think what they've done out there looks great," Crimmins said. He spent 32 years as a forester for the U.S. Forest Service in California.

On Saturday, he ventured to Farragut to have a look at the work, then toured the area again on Monday with the board.

Rosenberg said a citizens advisory committee years ago recommended that no logging be done from an elevation of 2,231 feet to the shore of Lake Pend Oreille.

Cronebaugh said the logging opens the understory up to growth of invasive weeds.

"It's just an ugly cycle," she said. "Hopefully we can save what's left, before it's ruined."