All posts by nfpa

North Fork Watershed Protection Act would not terminate existing leases

Environmental Issues, News,

Over at the Hungry Horse News, Chris Peterson put together a good report on the remaining mineral leases in the North Fork and Middle Fork drainages . . .

The North Fork Watershed Protection Act passed the House on a voice vote last week — one step closer to becoming law — but the act doesn’t address existing leases in the drainage, some of which are right on the edge of the Great Bear Wilderness.

The act only prohibits any new energy leases in the North Fork and Middle Fork of the Flathead River.

All told, energy companies once held about 246,000 acres of leases in the North and Middle Forks of the Flathead. Since the bill was introduced by former Montana Sen. Max Baucus a few years ago, several companies, including Conoco-Phillips, relinquished their claims.

Read more . . .

A new approach to paying for major wildfires

Fire Information and Status, News,

The Obama administration wants to pay for catastrophic wildfires with natural disaster funds . . .

The Obama administration’s proposed 2015 budget aims to change how the federal government pays for catastrophic wildfires.

In the past, large wildfires were paid for through the Forest Service budget. If a large fire broke out, the service would “borrow” money from funds used for forest restoration and other projects.

In the past, the Forest Service spent about 16 percent of its total budget on firefighting. But in more recent years, that figure has dramatically increased to about 40 percent, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last week.

Read more . . .

Rob Breeding: Protecting the North Fork

Commentary,

Rob Breeding favors the North Fork Watershed Protection Act. He also likes visiting the North Fork, especially the part where he catches fish . . .

I read about the North Fork long before I visited. This was back in the early 1990s, soon after I’d moved to Montana. Newspaper accounts painted a picture of a wild place filled with interloping Canadian wolves, grizzly bears and unwashed hippies occupying Polebridge.

It sounded amazing.

Still, it was more than a decade before I made it to the North Fork, visiting for the first time shortly after I returned to Montana following a two-state sojourn living away. It was just a drive-by, a Sunday afternoon loop with the family up to West Glacier, then back to the valley via Camas Bridge and the North Fork Road. I remember looking down at the water on that drive and thinking I needed to be there. I needed to be on that river.

I now know well the spot that inspired my reverie…

Read more . . .

‘Passing Wilderness on to the Next Generation’ presentation tomorrow evening

News, ,

Our own Frank Vitale will be a panelist at the next MWA “Wilderness Speaker Series” presentation. Here’s the official announcement . . .

Wilderness Speaker Series
Leaving a Legacy:
Passing Wilderness on to the Next Generation
Thursday, March 13, 2014
7:00 p.m.
Flathead Valley Community College
Arts & Technology Building, Room 139
Kalispell, MT

Our third presentation in our Wilderness Speaker Series will be this Thursday night! Join MWA and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation for an insightful intergenerational panel discussion that will encourage audience participation.

Panel participants:

  • Roland Cheek, retired wilderness outfitter and writer
  • Chris Ryan, retired USFS Region 1 Wilderness Manager
  • Frank Vitale, farrier and wilderness advocate
  • Rebecca Boslogh, Student leader in the University of Montana Wilderness Association student group
  • Jonson England, high school student and BMWF summer intern

See you there!

Crunch time begins for deer and elk

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Montana FWP talks about this critical time of the year for deer and elk populations . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, we are entering crunch time.

That time of the year when spring and winter play a tug of war, and depending on how it goes, deer and elk could be the losers.

Members of the deer family that go into winter in good shape have the energy reserves and body fat to survive those December and February subzero spells. But a long winter that continues through March and April will start to tip over the smallest and weakest.

And if we humans are not careful, we’ll cause some of the bigger animals to tip over.

Already some of our large game species could use a break. January was nice, with a handful of 50 degree days. But February plunged us back into winter, which after all is the season we’re in.

Now the real test for wildlife begins.

Read more . . .

Frank Vitale: Daines not a conservation hero

Commentary, Environmental Issues, ,

Long-time NFPA member Frank Vitale has a few things to say about Congeressman Steve Daines’ rather uneven support for conservation issues. This letter to the editor was published in this week’s Hungry Horse News and is also scheduled to appear in a number of other papers.

While I feel Congressman Steve Daines’ introduction of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act of 2013 is a great step forward, let’s not frame him as a conservation hero. With his political ambitions it would be political suicide if he didn’t support protection of the North Fork.

But let’s look at his overall conservation track record. First of all, he has dragged his feet on supporting one of the largest and most important pieces of conservation legislation in decades: The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act. Rather than getting behind this broad-based, made-in-Montana collaborative he stands to be the biggest spoiler. The Heritage Act is a plan that’s truly citizen based and represents many stakeholders. Support for its protection has been overwhelming. The Front also has some of the wildest country left in the lower 48. Under the Act most traditional uses will remain intact while protecting the most incredible landscapes and diverse ecosystems in Montana.

Then, Steve Daines introduces House Bill HR1526 that would probably make even most folks in the timber industry cringe. He basically throws the collaborative process out the window. His bill would impose mandatory timber targets for the Forest Service. This takes us back to the dark ages – when collaboration was nonexistent – back to the days of the timber wars of the 1970’s and ’80’s.

So is Steve Daines a conservation hero? I hardly think so. The North Fork Watershed Protection Act – while good – is also an easy bone to throw at the conservation community.

Frank Vitale

North Fork District Ranger Scott Emmerich to retire

Environmental Issues, News, ,

This week’s Hungry Horse News has nice things to say about Glacier Park’s soon-to-retire North Fork District Ranger Scott Emmerich . . .

North Fork resident Clark Helton was a hunter and a photographer, and he loved Glacier National Park. But he wasn’t in love with some of the Park’s management decisions — biologists were radio-collaring bears and wolves — even elk and deer, and Clark was no fan of man’s intrusion into the natural world.

So whenever Helton saw the Park’s North Fork district ranger, Scott Emmerich, he’d give him an earful — often for an hour or more. It got to the point that if Emmerich saw Clark’s pickup approaching, he’d hide lest he be caught up in chat he didn’t have time for.

Then one day Emmerich decided to meet Clark on his own terms. He went to Clark’s house at Red Meadow, and the two sat and had coffee, which was unusual because Emmerich didn’t drink coffee. Over the years, the two became friends and went on hunting trips together until Helton’s death.

Emmerich continued to manage the North Fork area of the Park with an emphasis on keeping the place rustic. There are no commercial operations in the North Fork, no flush toilets, no cell phone service and no paved roads.

That’s how Emmerich likes it.

Read more . . .

U.S. Forest Service chief favors wilderness conservation

Environmental Issues, News, ,

The Forest Service chief weighs in on wilderness at the “Room to Roam” Wilderness Issues Lecture Series in Missoula . . .

The U.S. Forest Service was founded on the idea of conserving the nation’s wild country, and it will continue that mission even as the opportunities to do so shrink, according to agency Chief Tom Tidwell.

“Once you use wilderness for something else, for our generation or future generations it’s gone,” Tidwell said during a lecture at the University of Montana on Tuesday. “It can shrink, but not grow.”

But Tidwell said we need blank spaces on the map to, as conservationist Wallace Stegner put it, preserve the challenge against which we as a people were formed. Those places defined by the Wilderness Act of 1964 serve as both places of human refreshment and ecological reserve in a landscape that’s getting ever more crowded.

Read more .  . .

North Fork Watershed Protection Act passes U.S. House

Environmental Issues, News, , , , , ,

Well, now. The North Fork Watershed Protection Act just passed the U.S. House this afternoon . . .

The House of Representatives passed the North Fork Watershed Protection Act by voice vote on Tuesday afternoon, passing the issue back to the Senate for final approval.

Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told his colleagues the bill was the first landscape protection act in nearly 30 years to get support from the whole state congressional delegation. Senators Jon Tester and John Walsh, both Democrats, have also pushed it on their side of the Capitol.

“Sen. Max Baucus began working on this bill since his very first year in Congress, in 1974,” Daines said of the state’s former senior senator, who retired in February. “I’m proud to be part of the effort to get it done and across the finish line.”

Read more . . .

Further reading: North Fork Watershed Protection Act Passes U.S. House (Flathead Beacon)

Glacier Park needs to replace historic Swiftcurrent Bridge

News, ,

Glacier Park’s historic Swiftcurrent Bridge is falling apart . . .

The majestic Many Glacier Hotel is an awfully iconic part of Glacier National Park to not be able to get to.

But that’s what lies down the road, according to a 79-page environmental assessment that proposes replacing the park’s historic Swiftcurrent Bridge with a new, clear-span bridge.

Public comments on the proposal are being taken through March 17. The bridge is the only way to access the Many Glacier Hotel Historic District and the hotel itself, a National Historic Landmark.

Read more . . .

Further reading: the official press release.