Category Archives: Commentary

Daily Inter Lake: Seeing the forest AND the trees

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , , , ,

The Daily Inter Lake posted a friendly editorial on the work of the Whitefish Range Partnership Saturday evening . . .

A group called the Whitefish Range Partnership should be commended for efforts to guide long-term forest planning on the Flathead National Forest north of Whitefish and Columbia Falls.

To say that the group of about 30 people representing highly diverse interests were not on the same page at the beginning would be a huge understatement. But after meeting regularly over a 13-month period, with a specific rule that all parties involved would have to sign onto a complete package of recommendations or abandon the effort entirely, the partnership came to a complete consensus on a 58-page set of recommendations.

They addressed potentially conflicting issues such as recommended wilderness, motorized summer use, mountain biking, snowmobiling, and timber harvesting.

Read more . . .

Larry Wilson: Wilderness compromise reached for North Forkers

Commentary, Environmental Issues, ,

Larry Wilson’s column discusses the efforts of the Whitefish Range Partnership . . .

Nearly 13 months ago, the Whitefish Range Partnership was organized. This group is a diverse group representing every aspect of forest users, from timber companies to wilderness advocates and everything in between — hikers, horsemen, trail bikers, snowmobilers, off-road motorists and commercial interests.

The purpose was to be ahead of the Flathead National Forest planning process and put together a document that would influence the Forest Plan and make it easier for the feds to come up with a plan acceptable to a majority of users.

Toughest subject to deal with was wilderness, and because the self-imposed rule of the WRP was that if even one member voted no then no proposal would be forwarded to the Forest Service.

Continue reading at the Hungry Horse News . . .

Forest plan revision overview posted

Commentary,

Public Affairs Officer Wade Muehlhof authored an informative article in the Flathead Beacon yesterday explaining the importance of the Forest Plan revision process. The Flathead National Forest is just getting started on this effort, which will take several years to complete . . .

For many people, the Flathead National Forest is the place where you can camp, hike, ride, ski, hunt and fish, observe wildlife and flora, gather firewood and Christmas trees where timber is harvested and fires are managed. Some enjoy the developed areas, others venture deep into the wilderness and many explore the areas in between. What people may not know is how much effort goes into managing these 2.4 million acres of public lands.

Management is guided by the Forest Plan. The plan is periodically revised to reflect current conditions. The forest was well into the plan revision in 2005 when a court case found the rule under which the planning effort was happening was not legal. As such the Flathead’s plan has not been revised since 1986. Now with a new planning rule, the Flathead National Forest is beginning the first phase of a multi-year planning process to revise the Forest Plan. The intent of the planning framework is to create a responsive planning process that informs multiple use management and allows the Forest Service to adapt to changing conditions, including climate change, and improve management based on new information and monitoring…

Read more . . .

Bob Brown: Collaborative forest agreements are the future

Commentary

Bob Brown has a pretty good opinion piece in this week’s Hungry Horse News discussing the increasing importance of citizen-based collaborative forest agreements. It’s good background on an increasingly important way of getting diverse interests to work together . . .

Last month, Chuck Roady, vice president and general manager of F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co., a family-owned sawmill that has been operating in Northwest Montana for more than 100 years, traveled to Washington, D.C., to share with the powers that be what it’s like to run a mill in Montana.

At the invitation of Rep. Steve Daines, Roady spoke to the House Natural Resources Committee about the web of lawsuits that too often ensnare federal timber sales. He called it, with good reason, “endless litigation.”

Roady reminded the lawmakers that lawsuits have forced the Forest Service to spend as much as $350 million a year on “timber sale analysis.” That’s tax money that could be productively spent on the ground, on projects that create lunch-bucket jobs, improve forest health and reduce the threat of increasingly deadly and destructive fires.

Before we Montanans hold our collective breath waiting for Congress to cut the web and ax the analysis, we might take heart by looking closer to home. Here in Montana, some forward-thinking people have simply gone ahead and taken the responsibility of finding homegrown solutions to resource issues . . .

Continue reading . . .

Larry Wilson: Thompson-Seton Peak by mule and foot

Commentary, Environmental Issues, News, , ,

For those of you who haven’t encountered Larry Wilson’s enthusiastic Thompson-Seton trip report, here it is. Kudos to Frank Vitale for coming up with the idea in the first place and making it happen . . .

What a great trip. Regular readers of this column will no doubt remember Frank Vitale and I debating the wilderness issue in this newspaper late last summer. That debate ended with Frank challenging me to go with him on his mules to Thompson-Seton Peak, where we would sit down and debate the issue on the mountain top. After getting Frank to agree to not only take me into the mountains but also bring me out, I accepted the challenge.

Unfortunately, the weather turned wet and cold, and we had to postpone the trip until the summer. During the winter, we were both involved in the Whitefish Range Partnership, and over the course of the meetings, we both became fully aware of the other’s feelings and concerns about wilderness. Thus, there was no big need for a mountain-top debate, but I was still anxious to take the trip and was more than happy that Frank, too, was still willing to take me.

July 28 was set as a mutually acceptable date, and I was so excited I started putting my gear together a week ahead of time…

Continue reading at the Hungry Horse News . . .

Dave Hadden: It all makes sense from up here

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , ,

Dave Hadden, Executive Director of Headwaters Montana, spent some time in the Canadian Flathead a short time ago. Here are his thoughts, written as he was on the summit of Mount Haig in the Canadian Rockies . . .

I’m sitting atop Mount Haig in the Canadian Rockies, just 30 miles (48km) from the Montana border and Glacier National Park. In front of me, the broken limestone and shale shards descend in sweeping arcs until they merge with ridge lines that go on forever. Behind me, very close behind me, my seat drops away vertically 2,000 feet to a jewel-like turquoise lake. I could be on top of Siyeh Peak in Glacier, but I’m not. I’m sitting on the highest peak in the proposed new Flathead National Park.

From up here you can see how the land fits together. How a grizzly bear and her cubs might tumble out of their winter den and find security in the high, carved cirque basin to my right from the instincts of male bears or the disturbance of human activities. How the green blush of a new year’s flowering moves up the valleys and canyon walls. How the returning winged-ones find willows and cottonwoods along the Flathead River and tributary creeks or in the tall spruce and pine to regenerate the song-filled air.

Continue reading . . .

John Frederick: North Fork Protection Vital

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , ,

The following letter to the editor by NFPA President John Frederick was posted to the Flathead Beacon’s web site July 19 . . .

Republican Congressman Steve Daines has introduced HR 2259, a North Fork Watershed Protection Act, and he deserves much credit for doing so.

Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester had earlier introduced virtually identical legislation (Senate Bill 255). It passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on June 18 of this year.

The legislation withdraws federal minerals from future leasing only on Forest Service land in the North Fork (and a slice of federal land in the Middle Fork along the river) not currently under valid existing leases. More than 200,000 acres of leases have been voluntarily relinquished that represents 80 percent of the leased land.

When this legislation is enacted it will complete a gentleman’s agreement between British Columbia and Montana to not allow leasing of minerals in the Flathead of B. C. and the North Fork of the Flathead because of concerns about wildlife and clean water. The Canadians were considerably faster to do their part of the agreement.

Steve Daines is a Republican. He has not let partisan politics get in the way of working with Democrats toward a worthwhile goal. His efforts will ensure quicker action on the legislation and I wish to thank him.

John Frederick
Polebridge

Frank Vitale: Thoughts of a Wilderness Traveler

Commentary, Environmental Issues, ,

Editor’s note: At the Whitefish Range Partnership meeting where wilderness was first discussed, Frank stood up and read the following aloud to the assembled representatives and observers. The whole room burst into applause when he finished.

For those of you who know him, try to imagine Frank’s delivery, rhythm and passion as you read this . . .

It’s lost on me that some people feel wilderness locks them out and locks up the land.

I’ve spent the better part of my life traveling through wild country, both on foot and horseback. When I was younger I got angry with those who would oppose wilderness protection for the last of the wild country. But as I get older and a bit more gray around the muzzle my perspective has changed. I sort of feel sorry and even feel a bit of pity for those who feel wilderness is a bad thing. Perhaps they are afraid, intimidated or just insecure to venture beyond their comfort zone.

For me, wilderness is the greatest freedom I’ve ever known. I’m not alone in these feelings. Just ask anyone who has spent time traveling in wild country. There’s a feeling that’s hard to describe – a sort of magic when I cross the line. It’s the key that unlocks the universe. Ian Tyson says it so well in song:

It’s way out back and the back of beyond
Where the nights are dark as coal,
Where the circle stays unbroken,
Where the rocks begin to roll.

The mules feel it too. The whole string’s cadence of hoof beats picks up; their ears stand erect and forward as if they can read “Wilderness Boundary” on the old Forest Service sign. I can breathe a whole lot easier.

In this fast, crazy world of computers, cell phones, gigabytes, megabytes, YouTube and all this cyberspace stuff, I have my doubts all this technology has really set us free. For me, the sound of well-shod hooves on the rocks, the creaking of saddle leather, the pungent smell of good honest mule sweat tempered with the sounds and smells of the wilderness – That’s Freedom!

I’ll go as far as I need to go to make camp where there’s good water, good grass. I’ll turn the stock out, hobble a few so they don’t stray too far. I’ll hit the bedroll under the biggest, brightest mantle of stars you could ever put your eyes on. I’ll wake early; jingle the mules in; sip stout coffee while feedbags are flipped for the last of the grain.

While saddling up, the hard reality sinks in. We’re about at the end of this gig . . .  Riding down through the Front Range I’m thinking . . .  A hundred years ago, Charlie Russell wrote in his memoirs, “Trails Plowed Under,”

“They ain’t making wild country anymore. We stole most of it from the Indians for a dollar a day. That was cowboy pay in them days.”

As the trail winds its way east through steep, narrow, limestone canyons the wind begins to pick up as it usually does in this country . . .  Wait, I thought I heard some far-off distant singing; a chanting sound fading in and out with each passing gust . . .  Must be my imagination . . .  No, there it is again . . .  Listen . . .  A chill runs through me . . .  Is it the spirits of the “old ones” who passed this way a long time ago?

I’m still riding and I’m still thinking . . .  When I get too old to put my foot in the stirrup and swing into the saddle I’m going to make one request . . .  Just wheel me up to the edge of the wilderness so I can look in one more time to a place and a time where I found true freedom.

Trout Unlimited comes out in favor of North Fork protection

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , ,

In an op-ed in the Ravalli Republic, The Flathead Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited came out in favor of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act . . .

The Flathead Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited has long been committed to protecting the Flathead River system, one of the last best strongholds for native bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout. While the North Fork of the Flathead River corridor is protected by the Wild and Scenic River designation, the eastern tributaries and uplands are secured in Glacier National Park, and the Canadian headwaters are protected by a provincial ban on mining and drilling, the nearly 400,000 acres of the North Fork watershed within the Flathead National Forest remain open to mineral and energy development.

The recent introduction of legislation by Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., to protect the North Fork of the Flathead from mineral entry and leasing is welcome news. Mirroring legislation in the Senate that was introduced earlier this year by Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, the North Fork Watershed Protection Act (HR 2259) would ensure the protection of the 400,000 acres of national forest land in the North Fork watershed by withdrawing federal lands from mining and mineral leasing. While existing leases would not be affected, already more than 200,000 acres of oil and gas leases have been voluntarily relinquished by several lease holders. Not only is this legislation widely supported in Montana, it also honors British Columbia’s commitment to do the same on their side of the border.

Continue reading . . .

Larry Wilson: North Fork wilderness debated

Commentary, Environmental Issues, News, ,

Larry Wilson talks about the issue of wilderness designation on the North Fork and forest management in general . . .

Last fall, I wrote about the formation of a group which named itself the Whitefish Range Partnership. Their goal was, and is, to write a draft Forest Plan for the Whitefish Range to present to the Flathead National Forest as they begin the process of writing a new plan for the entire Flathead National Forest.

The group has met twice monthly since last fall, with many committee meetings in between. Also meeting with the group have been Glacier View and Flathead Forest officials who acted as resource support. There have also been presentations by other resource folks with special expertise, like wildlife experts Tim Their, Jim Williams and John Weaver.

With a lot of give and take, the group has completed and agreed on most issues, including timber, fire, river corridor and wildlife until only one issue remains — wilderness…

Continue reading . . .