Three environmental advocates are withdrawing from the Flathead National Forest’s forest plan revision process, claiming it is “ill-informed, poorly documented and is creating conflict and resentment” at considerable taxpayer expense.

The Flathead Forest’s lead planner, however, says the process is working well and most participants have been fully engaged.

Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition; Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan; and Brian Peck, an independent wildlife consultant, signed a letter objecting to the process that was sent to Forest Service officials, including the agency’s chief.

Hammer and Montgomery have been involved with multiple lawsuits against the Flathead Forest over the last couple of decades.

The letter challenges the effectiveness of a public involvement process that has been underway for several months under the guidance of a consultant, the Meridian Institute, at a cost of $285,000.

The three say planning meetings should have been stalled until the Flathead Forest completed an assessment of current conditions and trends on the forest that is required under Forest Service rules. And the three say that Meridian has not been keeping adequate records of the meetings despite requests to do so.

“Frankly, it defies logic that the American taxpayer is expected to shell out well over a quarter million dollars for a series of meetings to be left with no record of who said what at those meetings so they can draw their own conclusions or examine the basis for what Meridian Institute and the Forest Service conclude,” the letter states.

It goes on to say that the meeting process should be stopped until the public has adequate time to review the 718-page assessment of current conditions and trends on the forest.

“Our pleas to slow the process down to foster a more cooperative atmosphere and garner more well informed public input have been refused at almost every turn,” it states, adding that Flathead Forest and Meridian staffers seem to be more interested in completing a “to-do list” rather than fostering collaboration.

Joe Krueger, the Flathead Forest’s team leader for the forest plan revision, defended the planning process, noting that it was designed with input from about 35 stakeholders that Meridian gathered through interviews before the process began last fall.

“We designed a process to be as inclusive and fair and transparent as possible,” Krueger said. “While no process designed to do this is perfect, I think what we designed has been productive in the sense that we’re getting some valuable feedback that will allow us to build a better plan for the Flathead National Forest.”

Regular meetings involving between 30 and 100 people have been held, Krueger said, first with discussions about forestwide conditions, then discussions about objectives and most recently, focusing on desired conditions for specific geographic areas.

Meetings have been held every night this week on geographic areas, and a Tuesday night meeting on the Swan Valley was “one of the most productive meetings I’ve participated in in the 26 years I’ve been involved with planning for the Forest Service,” Krueger said.

Krueger said he’s been getting positive feedback from most participants and some of them have never been involved with forest planning before.

“The shared learning that we’ve gotten from people who have never been involved in planning issues has been amazing,” he said.

Krueger said the process involves breaking participants with diverse interests into small groups to discuss areas of common interest.

That format makes it impossible to have a formal transcript of the meetings, but it does allow for productive discussions and collaborative recommendations.

The forest’s assessment of current conditions and trends came out on April 16, but a lot of information that is in the assessment has been made available to participants in the process over the last few months, Krueger said.

“We were trying to begin public involvement while working on this assessment at the same time,” he added.

Hammer, Montgomery and Peck maintain that the cart was put before the horse and current conditions, including legal and scientific “sideboards” that the forest must stay within, have been exceeded.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.