COEUR d'ALENE - A dozen people spoke out Tuesday morning against logging in Farragut State Park, telling the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation board to block further cuts.

Jan Jones, a Bayview resident, told the board she was devastated to find trees had been logged in the park in a shoreline hiking trail area overlooking Idlewilde Bay on Lake Pend Oreille.

"We urge you not to log the lakeshore," Jones told the Parks and Recreation board at a public forum at the Best Western Coeur d'Alene Inn. The board's meeting during the public forum was attended by approximately 50 people.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game, with approval from the Parks and Recreation board, plans to continue logging Douglas fir on approximately 165 acres in the park as part of a ponderosa pine restoration project.

Officials from the state agencies want to return the forest there to what they believe is the natural condition, with ponderosa pine trees dominating.

Opponents said no logging should be done from the shoreline up to an elevation of 2,231 feet.

Sharon Meyer, chair of the 110-member Bayview Community Council, said the group opposes logging.

In a recent letter to Fish and Game director Virgil Moore, the council said, "We have serious concerns that the planned logging operation will degrade this vital area, turning beautiful scenic trails into logging roads."

The council said the ponderosa pine restoration project would lead to erosion problems, resulting in lake pollution.

"Commercial-scale logging in this area is not appropriate, especially in a state park," the letter said.

Ten acres in the shoreline hiking area in Idlewilde Bay already was thinned as part of the restoration project.

Gary MacDonald, whose family has owned and operated MacDonald's Hudson Bay Resort in Bayview since 1951, submitted a letter that was read into the record during Tuesday's forum.

MacDonald said a 3-acre clear-cut at a lake viewpoint in that area of the park shows poor management.

With that "miserable logging job" fresh in his memory, he asked the Parks and Recreation board to take another careful look before proceeding with any more cuts.

"I think that the right thing is to stop, really stop, while we still have a chance to save an area where people can see big trees, walk among big trees, see big trees die a natural death and continue nature's course," he said.

He added, "I realize that perhaps a shoreline of ponderosa pine may have been the original look of the shoreline, but it is not what we have to enjoy now."

Not everyone, however, opposes further logging in the area.

Reid Ahlf, a forester for Idaho Forest Group which has five mills in North Idaho, said the state did a responsible job of logging in the park. More would be a good use of the resource, he said.

"Long-term active management is in the best interests" of the park and the public, Ahlf told the board.

Kootenai Environmental Alliance opposes further logging, and multiple people with connections to the organization showed up to voice their concerns.

They said they recognize some limited thinning can be appropriate in certain areas of the lakeshore, but the recent logging in the park hasn't been that limited, including the habitat restoration thinning.

KEA representatives said they also are frustrated because they haven't been given specifics about future logging plans in the park. Logging is planned to resume in 2014.

The Parks and Recreation board didn't make any decisions Tuesday but could decide to halt any further logging in the park.

KEA executive director Adrienne Cronebaugh said the organization feels shut out of the process.

"When the logging began there was an outcry from our membership as we and they feel betrayed and our concerns ignored," Cronebaugh said.