The Custer Gallatin National Forest announced it has revised its draft environmental assessment for the (approx 16,500-acre) South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment Project, and a 30-day comment period is open until Nov. 5. If approved, crews would conduct an estimated 5,551 acres of scattered clear-cuts, 6,593 acres of commercial thinning, 2,514 acres of non-commercial thinning and 1,804 acres of additional fuels treatments in the project area. Lodgepole pine stands dominate the area that would be logged, and the Forest Service wrote that over 26,000 of those acres are highly susceptible to mountain pine beetle due to ”the homogenous size, age and tree spacing.” …Mike Garrity, executive director of Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said that the act of adding clear-cuts and logging roads will threaten grizzly bears and Canada lynx — a species that relies on the hiding cover provided by dense trees.