The State of Montana is beginning to disburse grant money for national forest projects, including the Flathead and Kootenai forests . . .
About $1 million in state grants will be distributed to 13 national forest projects across Montana over the next few months as Montana’s first installment of funding authorized in the 2014 federal farm bill.
Four projects in the Flathead and Kootenai national forests will receive a total of $260,000.
The bill created the authority for state governors to nominate up to 5 million acres of “Priority Landscape Areas” in national forests within their states, focused on identifying tracts of land at the highest risk for disease, insect infestation and wildfires.