Two proposed logging projects in the South Hills won’t move forward unless the Federal Emergency Management Agency agrees to do an additional environmental assessment that contemplates mechanized logging, FEMA and city officials said Thursday.

FEMA environmental coordinator Donna Rakocy, in a telephone interview from Denver, said her office last week received a city request for a supplemental study on the logging proposal. The agency can either remove the projects from the list funded by a FEMA grant, or move forward with a new assessment and take public comment before deciding whether to approve the plans, she said.

Rakocy said she expects a decision in coming weeks. The city, which plans to complete the job sometime this winter, doesn’t have authorization to use FEMA money to pay for the work until the agency gives officials a green light.

Open-space parcels totaling 27 acres off Lime Kiln Road were initially slated for hand-thinning work to reduce wildfire dangers. Two years after the original plan was proposed, a survey of those stands showed more than 90 percent of the ponderosa pine-dominated stands are dying.

In response to the infestation, Parks and Recreation Director Amy Teegarden suggested using heavy equipment to remove nearly all dead or dying pines, leaving some snags standing for wildlife habitat. The work would involve some road-building, and commercial-sized logs would be sold to pulp mills, though the city doesn’t expect to turn a profit on the work. If money is made, Teegarden said, it would got toward future fire mitigation projects.

Rakocy said the City Commission’s 3-1 vote Monday to approve the change was “disquieting” given the absence of approval from FEMA, but she said officials hadn’t broken any laws by authorizing the change prior to agency approval.

“They’re not out of compliance with (the National Environmental Policy Act) as long as they don’t start the project,” she said. “It’s just a little bit unusual that they would have the vote before they have the approval.”

City Manager Tim Burton admitted the motion approved Monday, in which commissioners authorized “changing the silvicultural prescriptions” for the projects, could have been worded better. He said the city has never planned to do the work without FEMA approval.

“We didn’t do anything out of order, because FEMA is the agency in charge, not the city,” he said.

Michael Garrity, director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said the city should have waited and allowed the public more time to contemplate the proposal.

“The city, because they represent the public, they should want to have all of the information that’s gathered in an EA,” he said.

All noted the public will have 15 days to comment if FEMA decides to move forward with a supplemental assessment.

Commissioner Matt Elsaesser, who voted against the proposed change Monday after his motion to table the issue died for lack of a second. Elsaesser wanted to hear more information before moving forward with the projects.

“I think we just came across a change in prescription we should have spent a little more time on and gotten some more public review,” he said Thursday. “I’ll personally be looking forward to the EA to see a clear definition of what this project will entail.”

The city is entering a serious debate over how to manage fire fuels amidst the exponentially increasing attack of the mountain pine bark beetle, he added.

Mayor Jim Smith, who voted for the change, said he doesn’t think the city moved too quickly.

“We’ve got a beetle crisis,” he said. “I’m sure glad we’re not out of compliance, and we’ll wait (to do the work), but I don’t think we jumped the gun.”

Hand-thinning projects on three other parcels, totaling 52 acres, will continue to move forward, Burton noted. Those projects were studied in the original FEMA assessment, published in May. The two projects now considered for logging were also studied with hand-thinning in mind, along with two other projects on Mount Helena now on hold because of funding and land-ownership issues.

Reporter Larry Kline: 447-4075 or larry.kline@helenair.com