Category Archives: Environmental Issues

North Fork Watershed Protection Act passes U.S. House

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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)

BNSF gears up to move a million barrels of oil this year

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BNSF is getting braced to haul a lot of oil this year . . .

Less than a mile from Glacier National Park Superintendent Jeff Mow’s office is one of America’s fastest growing pipelines for Bakken crude oil: BNSF Railway.

Oil trains have become a common sight in West Glacier and the Flathead Valley, due in large part to the oil boom in North Dakota and Eastern Montana. Recently, BNSF CEO Matt Rose said his 32,000-mile railroad was projected to haul 1 million barrels of oil every day by the end of 2014. According to BNSF, the railroad operates one crude oil train every day through the Flathead Valley to refineries in Washington and Oregon. However, a recent rash of accidents has brought scrutiny to the practice.

Now, the railroad company is preparing a detailed hazardous materials response plan if an oil train were to derail near Glacier National Park. According to spokesperson Matt Jones, the plan will be available to local first responders in the coming weeks.

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Work continues on Flathead National Forest Plan revision

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The Missoulian has a brief progress report on the Flathead National Forest Plan revision project . . .

Work on the Flathead National Forest Plan revision gets underway this week with several work-group meetings in Kalispell.

The stakeholder gathering on habitat, vegetation and disturbance takes place Wednesday from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Those interested in recreation, access and wilderness meet Thursday from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Both meetings take place at the Flathead National Forest Supervisor’s office, 650 Wolfpack Way.

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‘Stories of Wolves’ screens Feb. 24

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Elke Duerr, who took care of the North Fork Hostel while Oliver was away early this year, is also, among many other things, a filmmaker. Her documentary about the Mexican Gray Wolf, “Stories of Wolves”,  is showing at the Crush Lounge on Monday, February 24, at 7:30 p.m. The Crush Lounge is located at 124 Central Avenue in Whitefish, on the second floor.

For more information see the Wild Wolf Film web site and the site for the Web of Life Foundation (W.O.L.F.).

Stories of Wolves film poster

Some fear farm bill grant program could harm Montana elk

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A vaccine research provision in the recently passed farm bill has some folks worried that it could be used to fund ill-considered disease eradication programs in elk populations . . .

Some wildlife advocates worry a considerably rewritten wildlife disease provision in the final version of the federal farm bill will make it much harder to track livestock agencies’ efforts to control wild elk…

…[A] section called the Competitive, Special and Facilities Research Grant Act included a line calling for vaccine research to control “pests and diseases (especially zoonotic diseases) in wildlife reservoirs presenting a potential concern to public health or domestic livestock and pests and diseases in minor species (including deer, elk and bison).” That goes into a grant program authorized to spend about $3.5 billion over five years.

The problem, according to people like Glenn Hockett of the Gallatin Wildlife Association, is whether some of those grants will go toward the eradication of brucellosis in wildlife. Attempting to do so could devastate Montana’s wild elk herds without much benefit to its cattle industry, he said.

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Idaho trappers catch unexpected lynx; researchers attach tracking collar

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The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is finding lynx in unexpected places . . .

State biologists have put a satellite-tracking collar on a female Canada lynx captured alive by two trappers in northern Idaho.

The trappers called the Idaho Department of Fish and Game last week after finding the 17-pound lynx in one of their traps in the West Cabinet Mountains.

The agency is in the middle of a five-year attempt to collect information on 20 little-studied creatures in the Idaho Panhandle and northeastern Washington.

“I was surprised that there were lynx in the West Cabinets,” said Michael Lucid, who’s heading up the Multi-Species Baseline Initiative for Idaho Fish and Game. “It shows us how little we know about the animals that live in our forests.”

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Panel says assumption of ‘eastern wolf’ species not justified

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One of the assumptions basic to the federal government’s wolf recovery plan may be in error . . .

A proposal to lift federal protections for gray wolves across most of the U.S. suffered a significant setback Friday as an independent review panel said the government is relying on unsettled science to make its case.

Federal wildlife officials want to remove the animals from the endangered species list across the Lower 48 states, except for a small population in the Southwest.

The five-member U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service peer-review panel was tasked with reviewing the government’s claim that the Northeast and Midwest were home to a separate species, the eastern wolf.

If the government were right, that would make gray wolf recovery unnecessary in those areas.

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Feds to spend $30M on forest restoration projects

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The USDA is kicking off a number of forest restoration project this year. There’s nothing major in this neighborhood, apparently, but that may change in subsequent years . . .

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday it will spend $30 million this year on forest restoration projects in 12 states to reduce the threat of wildfires, protect water quality and improve wildlife habitat for at-risk species.

Those first 13 projects will be the start of a multi-year initiative to improve the health of forests and watersheds on public and private lands, Agriculture Undersecretary Robert Bonnie said.

With longer fire seasons in recent years burning more areas, and beetle outbreaks devastating more than 40 million acres of forests in the West, the pace and scale of restoration need to be increased, he said.

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House passes salvage logging bill, with extras

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The U.S. House recently passed a bill to ease salvage logging restrictions for trees burned in last year’s Rim Fire in California. It also has a few extras regarding grazing and the easing of activity restrictions in certain national parks. The bill is very unlikely to get through the Senate, but is worthy of note as a sort of position statement on certain issues . ..

The House approved a wide-ranging public lands bill Thursday that would speed logging of trees burned in last year’s massive Rim Fire in California.

The measure also allows vehicular access to North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore, extends livestock grazing permits on federal land in the West and lifts longstanding restrictions on canoes, rafts and other “hand-propelled” watercraft in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

The House approved the bill, 220-194, on a largely party-line vote. It now goes to the Senate, where it is considered unlikely to pass. The White House opposes the bill but has not issued a veto threat.

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Polar bear program Feb. 7 at SKC in Pablo

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For those of you who can’t go on one of Chuck Jonkel’s polar bear viewing trips to Churchill, Manitoba, here’s an alternative . . .

Here’s a chance to learn about an animal few people get to see in the wild.

Frank Tyro’s seen hundreds of them there.

Tyro, a professor and director of the Salish Kootenai College Media Center, will present a program on polar bears Friday, Feb. 7, on the SKC campus.

The talk takes place at noon at the Johnny Arlee/Victor Charlo Theatre.

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