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Road construction and maintenance activities, although not generally 

 considered with si Ivi cultural practices, are included because of their 

 complementary relationship with forest practices in Montana and their 

 notoriety for creating water quality problems. The literature is replete 

 with references to road construction and maintenance as a primary source 

 of water quality problems when discussed in the context of silvicultural 

 practices. Road construction is an integral part of managing Montana's 

 forests and several thousand miles of roads have been constructed for 

 access to forest lands. 



Precommercial and commercial thinning (reducing the number of trees per 

 acre to allow remaining trees to grow with less competition) is practiced 

 in Montana on better sites. No water quality problems have been tied to 

 thinning projects in Montana and relatively little potential exists for 

 these problems in the future. 



Use of pesticides and fertilizers on state, BLM, and private forest lands 

 has been limited in Montana and current plans do not call for substantial 

 increases in use of these chemicals. 



A. Large Private Industry 



Silvicultural practices vary depending on management objectives, si Ivies, 

 slope, aspect, habitat types, etc. In general, forest industry firms do 

 less clearcutting than the U.S. Forest Service (EQC, 1976), using cutting 

 methods that rely more on natural regeneration. 



1. Champion International 



Champion International has developed a guide to silvicultural practices 



that it uses to manage the company's 640,000 acres of commercial timberland. 



