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(BUTTE, Mont.) – Timber harvests, vegetation treatments, and prescribed burns are on the horizon for public lands near Marysville, Mont., actions which are part of a recently-completed environmental analysis by the Bureau of Land Management’s Butte Field Office.

The Final Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for the Marysville Landscape Restoration Plan are now available on the field office’s ePlanning website at  http://1.usa.gov/1t28HMN

“In the EA, we took a close look at vegetation conditions around Marysville and how they might have changed over the years,” said Butte Field Manager Scott Haight.

Those conditions have led to such things as conifer encroachment, beetle-killed timber, and high fuel concentrations that could endanger wildland fire fighters and the public.

“As our team of specialists worked on the Marysville plan, they analyzed such actions as vegetation treatments, ways to reduce fuel loads in the Wildland Urban Interface, and the use of prescribed fire after thinning to reduce residual slash and promote nutrient recycling,” Haight noted. “This plan really focuses on the health of the forest and how we can sustain that for years to come.”

The BLM will announce decisions in the near future on specific vegetation treatment actions. Separate decisions on fuel-reduction treatments in the WUI, conifer encroachment removal in vegetation communities, and timber harvest contracts used to improve forest health, will each be issued with their own specific protest or appeal provisions. All decisions will be posted to the ePlanning website.

“I want to thank everyone who provided comments on the Draft EA or attended the public meeting last year,” Haight said. “Public input is valuable to us in the BLM as we continue in our commitment to keeping public landscapes healthy and productive.”