Portland timber firm at center of contested Idaho land swap

Seven former administrators of the Palouse Ranger District in Idaho are blasting a U.S. Forest Service plan to trade 28,000 acres of managed forest for about 39,000 acres of logged-over land controlled by Western Pacific Timber of Portland. John Krebs, a retired Forest Service employee, said the plan is fundamentally flawed because much of the public land has been carefully managed for the public's use. "The whole Palouse is prime," he said. "It's got old growth in it, riparian protection. It is the prime example of management. And the Forest Service has never told the public this story." Western Pacific Timber is offering to trade land it owns in northern Idaho that includes portions of the Lewis and Clark and Nez Perce National Historic Trails. Reilly has said the trade will eliminate some of the checkerboard pattern of public land in the region that makes it hard to manage. The Nez Perce Tribe and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation have supported the trade because of the historic significance and good habitat that is contained in the Upper Lochsa River Basin...AP