The first questioner at Sen. Jon Tester’s Monday public forum in Missoula wanted to know how the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act was coming along.

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Note: See Sen. Tester’s web site for the full text of the current draft of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.

Wolves and bears don’t behave well in courtrooms.

But the two big predators are likely to spend the next 18 months there as their advocates and enemies try to untangle them from the federal Endangered Species Act.

Last week, Montana wildlife managers decided to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy’s Aug. 5 decision placing the gray wolf back under federal protection. Meanwhile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Missoula appealed another Molloy ruling that prevented state management of Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bears.

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As the summer weather begins to wane and most guests head home, a rather unwelcome visitor makes its presence known in the Flathead Valley. Knapweed is in full bloom, and officials say the valley is approaching the best time to attack them.

“It’s definitely that time of year,” Flathead County Weed Control and Parks and Recreation Director Jed Fisher said. “Most noxious weeds are going to seed right now.”

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The Flathead County Planning Board last week recommended limiting the size of extractive industries in the North Fork, but took pains to disassociate itself from a much-publicized memorandum of understanding between Gov. Brian Schweitzer and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell.

That memorandum, signed earlier this year, calls for a ban on mining in the North Fork of the Flathead River in the United States and Canada.

Current county regulations require extractive industries in the North Fork Zoning District be of a “small scale,” but it is undefined and has not been implemented.

The board’s recommendation, which will be considered by the county commissioners, would limit extractive industries to five acres in size and allow no more than 20,000 tons of material to be removed each year. Those limits parallel limits set out in the Canadian-U.S. agreement.

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Here in Montana, August brings us the county fair and farm harvests. And this year we also celebrate a harvest of victories for Glacier National Park, the North Fork Flathead River and Flathead Lake. In addition to commemorating Glacier’s first 100 years, citizens from across the Montana-British Columbia border, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester did yeoman’s work to protect this special place.

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Chuck, as usual, drew a big crowd. We also presented him with a surprise birthday cake to celebrate his recent 80th birthday . . .

Chuck is on the right; John Frederick, NFPA President, is on the left. It was excellent cake!

Members of the MDT:

What insanity is this, sirs?  Is there any rational purpose whatever behind a study of the merits of paving an already perfectly adequate gravel road into a tiny, remote, isolated rural community adjacent to a Wild and Scenic River and one of America’s crown jewel National Parks, whose few year-round residents are overwhelmingly content with that road as it is?

Is there any basis in logic or practicality for spending money to determine whether the public should bear the appalling costs of creating a blacktop highway into de facto wilderness, to an end point where no one lives and beyond which no one can go, through prime habitat for many precious and endangered species that the American people want protected from just such incursions, and that are, due to its present character, largely so protected?

Can there be, in the fevered imaginations of a cadre of delusional boomers and bureaucrats, some intelligible justification for asking the public to finance an absurd highway to nowhere that virtually no one wants, when the all the rest of developed, inhabited, commercially active Flathead Country makes do with its network of badly kept, poorly maintained roads?

Surely, sirs, you by now apprehend the lunacy of this scheme.  Surely you would be embarrassed, nay, shamed, to put your imprimatur on such a monument to utter folly.

Relying, as I do, on the persistent capacity of the human mind, when presented with irrefutable facts and compelling argument, to make the right decisions, even in the face of baldfaced imbecility, I am confident that you will dismiss this piece of egregious foolery out of hand.

You will, of course, recall the episode of the bizarre and redoubtable Sarah Palin and her “bridge to nowhere”, and its outcome.  Enough said…

With tentative respect, pending your decision, I am,

Paul Edwards

Please include my letter in the official record.

A deal to permanently protect the North Fork of the Flathead could come soon, Montana Sen. Jon Tester said last week.

“Maybe as soon as September we could get an agreement that is binding,” Tester said in a conference call with reporters last Thursday.

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A diverse group of people and organizations who care about the Crown of the Continent are working with The University of Montana Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy to organize a conference that will celebrate and build upon the region’s remarkable natural and cultural heritage.

The two-day conference – “Remarkable Beyond Borders: Shaping the Future of the Crown of the Continent” – is open to anyone interested in the past, present and future of the region. It will take place Thursday and Friday, Sept. 23-24, at the Bayshore Inn, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.

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Conference web site: http://crownroundtable.org/2010Conference.html

The smoke we’re seeing in western Montana is coming from wildfires in British Columbia

Bridget DeRosa of the National Weather Service in Missoula said that while it was hazy in the Missoula and Bitterroot valleys, visibility was still more than 10 miles on Saturday. But it was reduced to 6 miles in the Flathead Valley around Kalispell.

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