Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Glacier Park’s uncertain future

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This week’s Hungry Horse News has a pretty good overview of the threats faced by Glacier National Park over the next few decades . . .

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed the “Organic Act” which created the National Park Service. In that bill, it said the Service has a purpose “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

In Glacier National Park, that mantra is becoming harder and harder to accomplish, admits Jack Potter, as the Park is besieged by both internal and external threats, most of which are not of its own making.

Read the entire article . . .

Wolf delisting back on track

Environmental Issues, News,

The Saturday, March 7, 2009 issue of the Daily Inter Lake has a pretty good overview of the current plan to remove gray wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species . . .

There had been uncertainty about how the Obama administration would proceed, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday the decision to remove gray wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species.

The delisting proposed by Salazar mirrors a move by the Bush administration in January that was suspended in order for the new administration to review. It will apply to wolves in the western Great Lakes region and in Montana and Idaho, but not in Wyoming.

Read the entire article . . .

Group wants wilderness bill for Montana

Environmental Issues, News

From the Friday, March 6, 2009 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Retired Forest Service brass and other prominent Montana citizens called on Montana’s congressional delegation Thursday to press for the establishment of additional wilderness areas in the state.

The group said it believes that 26 years is too long since any land in the state has been permanently protected as wilderness. During that same period, more than 439 wilderness areas have been designated in other states.

“We believe that what Montana’s wildlands need now, more than ever, is leadership in Washington from Montana’s delegation,” the group said in a letter to Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester and Rep. Denny Rehberg.

Read the entire article . . .

Salazar OKs Wolf Removal From Endangered List

Environmental Issues, News,

From the Friday, March 6, 2009 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday he was upholding a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and the western Great Lakes from the federal endangered list.

Salazar said wolves would remain a protected species in Wyoming because its law and management plans were not strong enough. But management of the predator will be turned over to state agencies in Montana and Idaho and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah, in addition to the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Read the entire article . . .

County needs dust program partners

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As promised, Flathead County has set some money aside for a sort-of dust abatement co-pay plan. Trouble is, there aren’t many takers so far. The deadline is March 27th.

From the March 4, 2009 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Residents who want to tap into Flathead County’s cost-sharing dust abatement program this summer may want to heed an age-old adage: Speak now or forever hold your peace.

The deadline to sign up for the first-time program is March 27, and to date the county has had little response from rural residents, Public Works Director Dave Prunty said Monday.

Read the entire article . . .

State may get $2 million riverfront property

Environmental Issues, News,

From the Wednesday, February 4, 2009 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is closing in on two waterfront land acquisitions with Bonneville Power Administration funding.

A 245-acre parcel of undeveloped land along Foy’s Bend on the Flathead River south of Kalispell is being purchased for just more than $2 million, plus a 53-acre parcel along Hay Creek in the North Fork Flathead River drainage is being purchased for about $400,000.

Environmental reviews for both projects were amended to clarify terms of conservation easements that will be held on both properties by BPA.

Read the entire article . . .

Bennett fires back with haughty e-mail

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Here’s a curiousity. Just a year ago, Bill Bennett, British Columbia’s mining minister, was forced to resign due to some wildly intemperate remarks regarding opposition to resource development in the Canadian Flathead. Bennett, now Tourism, Culture and Arts Minister, is at it again. This time, he was responding to a Fernie area tourism operator accusing Bennett of being more interested in coalbed methane development than tourism.

From the Thursday, February 5, 2009 online edition of 24 Hours Vancouver . . .

Tourism, Culture and Arts Minister Bill Bennett has described a tourism operator in his riding as having “bigoted” and “ignorant” opinions – accusing Steve Kuijt of writing a “vicious and mean-spirited” e-mail, which “may well be libelous.”

Read the entire article . . .

Groups renew call to expand Waterton into B. C. river valley

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From the Saturday, January 31, 2009 online edition of the Calgary Herald . . .

Conservation groups are renewing calls for Waterton Lakes National Park to be expanded into the Flathead River Valley, despite British Columbia’s decision to close the door to coal bed methane development in the ecologically key area in southeastern B.C.

The Sierra Club, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Wildsight and others say the relatively untouched valley is still imperilled.

“Until we have permanent protection for the Flathead River Valley in the form of a national park, it is still threatened by future coal bed methane proposals,” said Sarah Cox, a spokeswoman for Sierra Club B. C. “And it’s under threat from a proposal for strip mining coal and other minerals.”

Read the entire article . . .

Stalemate, some success, retirement

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From the Sunday, January 11, 2009 online edition of the Missoulian . . .

The coal was here, hidden by a thin skin of wilderness, long before Rich Moy arrived; and it was still here, against all odds, when he left.

That, he considers, is at least some sort of success, although much more work will be required to keep it there, buried beneath what’s wild.

“In many ways, it’s been a stalemate for 30 years,” Moy said. “We haven’t lost much ground, but we haven’t gained any, either. The Canadian Flathead and the wilderness north of Glacier National Park have been and will be a flashpoint of international controversy.”

When Moy arrived on this backcountry battlefield, nearly three decades ago, the then-new controversy centered on a proposed Canadian coal mine to be built just a few miles north of Glacier Park.

When he finally retired last month, on the last day of 2008, the now-old controversy centered on yet another coal mine proposed in the headwaters, and a second coal mine in the river bottom, and a gold mine, and a phosphate mine, and an ongoing search for coalbed methane.

“In all these decades,” he said, “the British Columbia government has never wavered in its desire to industrialize the Flathead.”

Read the entire article . . .

Helicopter skiing proposal rejected — for now

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From the Thursday, December 11, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

The Stillwater State Forest, citing considerable public opposition, has denied a request to allow helicopter skiing on parts of the Whitefish Mountain Range.

Brian Manning, manager of the Stillwater and Coal Creek state forests, said his office received 316 comments, most of them opposed to helicopter skiing.

“Their concerns mainly include the noise and effects to winter recreation; the adverse effects to various wildlife species; low-flying aircraft effects to adjacent landowners and the potential for trespass on federal lands,” Manning wrote in a letter to Triple-X Helicopter and Valhalla Adventures, two Whitefish businesses that proposed helicopter skiing operations on specific parts of the Coal Creek and Stillwater forests.

Commercially guided ski trips were proposed at Winona, Coal and Stryker ridges on the two state forests.

Read the entire article . . .