The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to repeal the Roadless Rule — without asking Montanans how we think our public lands should be managed.
The rule guides the management of over 6 million acres of national forest land in Montana. The agency held 600 public meetings — 34 in Montana — when it wrote the rule. Now, its leadership is rushing to repeal the rule without holding a single public meeting anywhere.
Join us for a community meeting to learn more about the Roadless Rule, explore how repealing it could impact recreation, wildlife, clean water, and public safety on the Flathead National Forest. You’re invited to share your thoughts on the proposed repeal and discuss alternatives for managing the Flathead’s roadless backcountry areas.
The meeting will be in Kalispell on March 4, 6:00pm-7:30pm at Flathead Valley Community College AT-139 (Arts and Technology Building, 777 Grandview Drive)
“The Flathead National Forest is adjusting the way planning projects are announced and public comments are solicited.” Short version: There is a separate project announcement email list. (Sign up for the list here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/flathead/projects.) Project comments will need to be sent to the individual project manager. There will be no formal time-frame for comments and feedback.
If this sounds a little vague, that’s because it is, in fact, a little vague.
If the little veins aren’t standing out on your forehead yet, here’s the text of the October 14, 2025, press release. That should do the trick . . .
From: Anthony B. Botello, Forest Supervisor
Dear Interested Stakeholder:
The Flathead National Forest is adjusting the way planning projects are announced and public comments are solicited. You are being contacted because you have expressed interest in Flathead National Forest projects, have previously submitted comments, or have subscribed to project information email bulletins.
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed the Executive Order, Unleashing American Energy. This E.O. directed the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) to provide guidance on implementing NEPA to expedite and simplify the permitting process. CEQ responded to this direction by rescinding its NEPA regulations, creating a path for agencies to reform their own NEPA procedures.
On July 3, 2025, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) removed seven agency-specific regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), including those for the U.S. Forest Service, and replaced them with new department-wide NEPA regulations. As a result of these recent changes, the Flathead National Forest is beginning to implement new E.O.s and USDA direction by more efficiently complying with NEPA, especially in regards to projects that address forest health and fuel reduction or other active forest management objectives.
Notices of proposed actions (scoping) will no longer be sent by way of email mailing list. I encourage you to look to our webpage as the primary source of project information and updates at https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/flathead/projects. You may also sign up for information and be alerted to happenings around the Forest.
Your comments and input remain valuable to our project development and informing decisions. Rather than only engaging public at specific and restricted timeframes, please provide your input on Flathead National Forest projects at any time during project development. To keep informed, please monitor our project webpage, selecting the project that interests you, and contact the individual listed as the project leader.
When created in 2001, The Roadless Rule protected almost 60 million acres of U.S. Forest Service Land by preventing new road construction and development. 37% of these lands are in Montana. At that time 1.6 million communications were submitted during public comment with over 95% in favor of the Rule. The present Department of Agriculture Secretary Rollins is using two of Donald Trump’s executive orders to justify the eliminating Roadless Rule. One demands increased timber harvest and another calls for making wildfire prevention and suppression more effective by easing burdensome rules and regulations. These actions will endanger the ecosystems of the public lands we cherish, diminish wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, and increased runoff will reduce water quality.
Please help protest the rescinding of the Roadless Rule by participating in the public comment period. NOTE: The public comment period expires on September 19!
Help further by contacting your representatives in Congress and ask them to support the Roadless Area Conservation Act which has been introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and Representatives Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03) and Andrea Salinas (OR-06). This legislation has support in both the House and Senate and if passed will codify the 2001 Roadless Rule into law once and for all.
For more background, here are a couple of articles worth reading…
The NFPA has submitted an extensive set of comments to the Flathead National Forest regarding the Comprehensive River Management Plan (CRMP) for the Flathead Wild and Scenic River (WSR) System.
The proposed National Old-Growth Amendment is making steady progress. It is designed to protect forests that are “…in late stages of stand development, as identified by tree size, canopy layers, large dead woody material, species composition, and ecosystem function.”
The amendment is currently in the stage of accepting comments on a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Comments are open until September 20, 2024.
Alongside many Flathead conservation groups, we are asking our supporters and members to please sign the EPA petition to get CFAC and the main stem of the Flathead river cleaned up once and for all! From headwaters to main waters, you can be a part of the bigger, cleaner picture. There’s more work to come, but for now, you can learn more and sign your name to the petition by visiting the Coalition for a Clean CFAC website.
You can also read a short summary of the situation below.
Flannery Freund
NFPA President
Summary written by Peter Metcalf; lightly edited here…
We are reaching out to you about the cleanup of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Plant Superfund site in hope you may be concerned and willing to help. We are part of a growing group of concerned citizens who are pressing for a complete cleanup of the approximately 1.2 million cubic yards of contaminants that remain on site. It’s a doozy of nasty chemicals, including cyanide, fluoride, arsenic and selenium. The proposed “cleanup” plan would leave all this waste on site where it can potentially leach into nearby drinking water wells or the Flathead river. Rather than restored or redeveloped, the 960-acre site would be mostly off limits to future human uses. For years the local citizens and the elected leaders have consistently asked for the waste to be removed. But CFAC did not analyze this option during the feasibility study. The company simply dismissed it as too costly and too disruptive to local communities to truck the waste and too costly. (They conveniently glossed over the fact that for nearly 20 years they removed toxic waste by the existing rail line to a hazardous waste landfill out of state.
We are at a critical juncture. The EPA is reviewing the proposed plan and expects to issue a decision this spring. We are trying to get the EPA to stop their decision making process and require a full cost-benefit analysis be conducted before issuing a final plan. We are also trying to organize a community visioning process to help determine the future uses of the site. So how can you help?
Please share the petition with others. You can do so by forwarding the website link or by passing along the flyer and paper petition to collect signatures (linked below). We need as many signatures as possible.
Contact our elected officials (especially the county commissioners) and ask them to tell the EPA they do not support the proposed waste-in-place plan.
The aspen trees are beginning to shed and the currently brilliant blue skies offer the perfect backdrop. The river continues to tickle the valley bottoms as critters actively scramble the shrubs for the last of the dried up berries.
For many of us this is the best time of year-but, come to think of it-we say that every season, don’t we?!
Well, beyond sending you all a celebratory fall greetings I’m writing to let you all know that we have until the end of tomorrow, September 15th, to donate to a local fundraising campaign called the Great Fish Challenge. This annual fundraising event provides much of the years operating budget for many local non-profits and, although we are not participating, the NFPA would like to ask you to donate today! In particular, to the Flathead Rivers Alliance. As a partner organization to NFPA, contributing to their efforts will directly help us in our mission to preserve the wildlife, wilderness and watershed of the North Fork Valley!
So, if you don’t mind, take 3 minutes and scroll to the bottom of www.flatheadrivers.org and donate now!!!
Thanks for all your support you guys! We look forward to chatting more as the summer comes to an end! Cheers!
For this year’s annual meeting we’ve invited Liz Fairbanks, a Road Ecologist at The Center for Large Landscapes, to help us better understand the role a road (or road systems) plays in an ecosystem.
We would love for you to be among our honored guests.
5:30pm
Potluck supper
6:45pm
Short business meeting to elect officers and members of the Board of Directors and report on the work of NFPA
7:30pm
Speaker
We are excited to spend an evening with all of you, share with you what we’ve been up to, and look forward to a great presentation.
The Flathead Beacon has a reader poll running on their web site titled “Are You in Favor of Paving the North Fork Road to Camas?” It’s near the bottom of their home page on the right. (On a smartphone, just keep scrolling down.)
[UPDATE! The hearing on SB379 is scheduled for Monday, February 20, at 10:00am! ]
Greetings NFPA members and keepers of the wild. We hope this message finds you well. We are writing today because we need your help! About 2 minutes of your time in total.
We just learned that Steve Fitzpatrick (SD 10) just introduced SB379, a bill that would prohibit existing and future minimum lot size zoning regulations beyond 3 miles of a municipality. Minimum lot sizes would be left up to the Montana DEQ based on septic/well permits (typically 1 acre). This bill stands in direct contrast of the North Fork’s 20 acre lot minimum that maintains the basic values like solitude and wilderness that brought us all here.
Call 406-444-4800 and simply leave a message for all senate local government committee members in opposition of SB379.
Okay, yeah we only said two, but if you have more time, you can testify as well!
Here are directions on how to testify.The hearing is now expected this coming Monday, February 20, at 1:00am. Testimony from North Fork landowners will be very helpful. Consider the talking points of our “Montana way of life, rural values, community character, keeping Montana like it is”, etc.
Forrest Mandeville-(R)-SD29 Land use planning consultant and local government committee member who may be more sympathetic to our cause: 406-690-1933 forrest.mandeville@legmt.gov.
From our friends at Wild Montana . . .
