Last Friday, December 19, a group of folks met with Senators Tester and Walsh at the Belton Inn in West Glacier to celebrate the passage of a number of Montana lands bills, including the North Fork Watershed Protection Act. Yours truly was there, along with a fair number of other North Forkers, conservationists, business people, community leaders and federal officials. The media was out in force. I knew perhaps a third of the folks in the room.

The meeting was informal, with both politicos in blue jeans and very accessible. They even showed up ahead of time to have more time to chat with the attendees. Everyone made a point, before and after the speechifying, of thanking the senators for getting legislation through the system that was developed collaboratively here in Montana. It was all very adult and non-political. Refreshing.

There’s been a ton of attention from both the press and from a number of conservation outfits. Rather than generate a bunch of individual posts, I’m going to do a roll-up here, with links to a representative sample of the online coverage . . .

Supporters Hail Passage of North Fork Bill as Conservation Milestone (Flathead Beacon; nice photos)

North Fork preservation celebrated in West Glacier (KPAX)

Obama signs bill protecting North Fork, Rocky Mountain Front (Helena Independent Record)

Victory for the Crown of the Continent (Montanans for Healthy Rivers newsletter; also has nice Trail Creek article)