Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Blackfeet musician Jack Gladstone invites oil company exec to Rocky Mountain Front

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Our colleagues on the Rocky Mountain Front are having a problem with Solenex, an oil outfit based in Lousiana. Solenex is suing the feds to allow oil exploration in the Badger-Two Medicine area. Jack Gladstone came up with a unique way to open a conversation with the company . . .

Blackfeet musician Jack Gladstone has invited a Louisiana oil executive to visit him on the reservation and discuss relinquishing his company’s oil leases south of Glacier National Park.

Gladstone wrote to Solenex Inc. manager Sidney Longwell on Aug. 30, telling him the company’s drilling plans along the Rocky Mountain Front would “violate both the sanctity of this landscape and the treaty rights” of the Pikuni-Blackfeet people…

“Sidney, my home is on the Blackfeet Reservation. I may not have all the amenities of the big city, but a pot of coffee is always on and a meal never far from the stove,” Gladstone wrote. “I invite you to visit me here, to deepen our understanding of each other’s motives and visions regarding the Badger-Two Medicine/Hall Creek wildlands.

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World’s oldest radio-collared bear dies

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The oldest radio-collared bear in the world died recently . . .

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reported last week that a black bear they had been tracking since 1981 died in the wild at 39 1/2 years of age.

Bear No. 56 was found Aug. 21 in the Chippewa National Forest. She was radio-collared in July 1981 when she was seven years old. At the time, the black bear was accompanied by three female cubs. From 1981 through 1995, Bear No. 56 had eight litters of cubs and successfully raised 21 of 22 cubs to 18 months of age.

Bear No. 56 outlived all of the 360 black bears that MDNR researchers radio-collared in 1981 by 19 years.

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A senator’s fight to protect the Flathead’s North Fork

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North Forker Doug Chadwick has an excellent article on the National Geographic web site discussing Sen. Max Baucus’ decades-long efforts to protect the North Fork Flathead watershed and the reasons behind this work . . .

Daybreak on August 8 found me on a bank of the North Fork of the Flathead River in northwestern Montana, among the mixed tracks of deer, otters, and grizzly bears, marveling, as I have a thousand times before, at the near-magical transparency of these waters.

The bottom stones stood out as if on display under glass. Decades ago, my wife and I built a cabin nearby.

Across the river on the east bank, in Glacier National Park, the campers were stirring in their tents and the first cars were snaking up the Going to the Sun Road. But I was headed west that day, into the Whitefish Range, to see a man about the future of this valley.

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Grinnell Glacier study reveals 25,000 years of climate history

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The Hungry Horse News has a fascinating report on a recent Waterton-Glacier Science and History Day session. A presentation by Kelly MacGregor, a geomorphologist and associate professor of geology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, discussed the history of Grinnell Glacier over the past 22,000+ years as revealed by core samples from nearby lakes . . .

It’s well documented that the glaciers in Glacier National Park are receding and many have vanished. But when they were bigger, they were likely far bigger — in fact, the iconic Grinnell Glacier once likely extended nearly to what is now Swiftcurrent Lake.

Kelly MacGregor, a geomorphologist and associate professor of geology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., has been studying the ebb and flow of Grinnell Glacier over the past 25,000 years.

Giant masses of moving ice, glaciers are difficult to study on the ground — the carving, grinding and shaping of the landscape occurs beneath them and simply can’t be observed. Glaciers also have a tendency to destroy, or at least alter, their geological tracks. But there is a way to track glaciers over time, MacGregor explained to a packed house at the Waterton-Glacier Science and History Day recently — by taking core samples from the sediments in the lakes that glaciers leave behind. She called the sediment in lakes “nature’s junk drawer” — heaped with remnants from the past.

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Old Moose Fire burn on North Fork has a knapweed problem

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Knapweed is a real nuisance in the old Moose Fire burn area . . .

The hillsides above Big Creek and the North Fork of the Flathead River are valuable winter range for deer and elk. Unfortunately, a new invader has moved in — weeds. Spotted knapweed is becoming a problem along the North Fork Road where the 2001 Moose Fire razed the landscape.

The Forest Service is aware of the problem, said Tris Hoffman, weed coordinator for the Flathead National Forest.

Hoffman said last week that Montana Conservation Corps crews were hand-pulling weeds from the slopes last week. The Forest Service is also spraying and in some cases using weevils to control the weed.

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Feds delay wolf plan independent review

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service messed up the initial stages of an independent scientific review of their plan to remove federal protections for wolves across most of the U.S. Now they have to back up and try again . . .

A federal agency is delaying an independent analysis of a plan to drop legal protections for wolves across most of the nation because of concerns about the selection of experts to conduct the review, an official said Tuesday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June called for removing gray wolves across the Lower 48 states from the endangered species list, with an exception for the struggling Mexican wolf in the Southwest. Agency director Dan Ashe said the wolf had recovered to the point that it could thrive and even enlarge its territory without federal oversight, although some advocates and members of Congress said the move was premature.

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Xanterra selected as new Glacier Park concessioner

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The National Park Service has selected Xanterra Parks & Resorts as the new Glacier Park concessioner for the next 16 years, replacing Glacier Park, Inc., which as been operating the park concessions since 1981.

And, yes, this is the same Xanterra with connections to Anschutz Exploration Corp., the outfit that was until recently performing exploratory drilling on the Blackfeet Reservation along the eastern boundary of Glacier Park. Both Anschutz Exploration and Xanterra Parks and Resorts are owned by Philip Frederick Anschutz, one of the wealthiest billionaires in the nation. Xanterra is likely to prove a controversial choice.

Here is the lead-in for the official press release . . .

The National Park Service has selected Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Inc. (Xanterra) to provide a variety of visitor services in Glacier National Park for the next 16 years.

The new park concessions contract is anticipated to begin in January 2014 and includes lodging, food and beverage, retail, transportation and other visitor services within the park. This fall Xanterra is expected to work with Glacier Park, Inc. during a transition period. Glacier Park, Inc. has held the current park concessions contract since 1981.

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Building a new management plan for the Flathead River Corridor

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The Flathead Beacon just posted another of their “Focusing on…” articles, this time discussing the challenges to the Flathead River Corridor from increasing recreational pressure, which is forcing consideration of a new river corridor plan. Recommended reading . . .

The rhythm of the North Fork flows to a mellow tempo, even as the steady thrum of traffic and the ever-present flotilla of rafts and kayaks sketch a clear portrait of the wild and scenic river corridor’s growth and popularity.

Dust clouds roll off this unpaved portion of Highway 486, also known as the North Fork Flathead Road, and the meter of traffic ticking along the western border of Glacier National Park has given rise to the need for a new river management plan.

Designated a National Wild and Scenic River in 1976, the three forks of the Flathead River amount to 219 miles of what everyone agrees is “a very special place,” says Rob Davies, the Flathead National Forest’s district ranger for the Hungry Horse/Glacier View district. The North Fork Flathead River is protected by that designation, while its eastern tributaries and uplands are tucked away in Glacier Park. Its Canadian headwaters are protected by a provincial ban on mining and drilling, and U.S. Sen. Max Baucus has introduced legislation that would prohibit new energy and mineral development on the nearly 400,000 acres of the North Fork watershed within the Flathead National Forest.

Still, public land managers say the river corridor is being impacted by increased use, and have been collecting data to inform the future of the river corridor, while calling on the public to help adopt a new management strategy for recreational use.

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New oil exploration leases near Glacier Park trigger concern

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Renewed concerns about oil exploration along the Rocky Mountain Front . . .

A series of new oil exploration leases on the border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park has renewed the anger and motivation of those opposed to energy development along the Rocky Mountain Front.

The leases were found last week among records held by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. They include nine lease blocks, two of which include a portion of Chief Mountain — the square-shaped landmark mountain along the eastern border of the national park.

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‘Work day’ event part of Baucus’ efforts to support North Fork

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The Flathead Beacon has a good write-up, with photos, of Sen. Max Baucus “work day” last Tuesday near Big Creek . . .

Chipping away at the sun baked dirt with a Pulaski axe, a hard-hat clad Max Baucus graded out the slope of a hiking trail high above the North Fork Flathead River near the Big Creek tributary, buffing out a ribbon of single track that tops out on Glacier View Mountain but hasn’t been maintained since fire scoured the hillside in 2001.

In many ways, it was another day at the office for Montana’s senior senator, but instead of walking the halls of Congress he climbed steep switchbacks, chatting with and sweating alongside young members of a Montana Conservation Corps trail crew instead of running the Senate Finance Committee.

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