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timberlands and real estate

Wednesday the Missoula County Commissioners sent a letter to Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey asking him to drop consideration of the forest road easement amendment until the documents proposed for amendment have been identified and made available to the public.

The commissioners wrote: "...the failure to identify, review, and properly reference the easements to be amended will make the proposed Easement Amendment legally void, and the process leading up to your expected approval fatally flawed."

Rey, overseer of the Forest Service, said during a meeting last week with officials from western Montana that he would not make the paperwork available and invited a lawsuit, which appears imminent. [more]

MSU Wheeler Center Annual Spring Conference

What does the future of agriculture and energy in Montana appear to be, particularly in the variable climate challenges we face?

This is the spotlight of the discussion at the Burton K. Wheeler Center’s statewide conference next week, “Climate Change in Montana: Impacts and Opportunities for Energy and Agriculture.”

On May 12-13, an immense conversation between the agriculture and energy sectors, environmental, educational and state agencies, legislators, officials and climate scientists will focus on Montana’s energy and agriculture sectors’ innovations and opportunities, climate challenges and its impacts, and future prices and outlook. [more]

guest opinion: plum creek and mark rey

In Montana, we are proud of our sunshine laws that keep government actions open and responsive to the public. Unfortunately, the laws that apply to the federal government are not as enlightened, which can sometimes lead to nasty surprises from Washington—surprises that impact the clean water and open spaces we treasure on our public lands.

Montanans got just such a surprise two weeks ago, when the Missoula County Commissioners and Senator Jon Tester discovered that Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, the Bush Administration political appointee who oversees the Forest Service, has been quietly negotiating a backroom deal with real estate developer Plum Creek. [more]

By spending time with the land, you know

Most people are aware of regional differences in climate. The Southeast is hot and humid. The Southwest is hot and dry. But in the Intermountain West, mountains affect air currents and moisture distribution to create many microclimates within just one valley. Visitors don’t recognize those microclimates. Most residents find out about them by trial and error.

At the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, I met a couple in their mid 30’s that were visiting from Las Vegas. They said they were tired of the rat race and were looking for a place with a little acreage, to garden and maybe raise some livestock. The first question they asked me was “How much snow do you get here?”

“It depends on what part of the Gallatin Valley you are in,” I replied. They looked at me blankly.

“The climate isn’t the same across the whole valley,” I explained. [more]

New West News Brief

As the controversy over the Yellowstone National Park’s population of bison continues, Bozeman-based TERRA shares a three-part video series on the “free-ranging” population’s scenerio and the hazing that is occurring. (Click video above for a preview of the series.)

As there are passionate people on both sides of the debate, this series tries to understand all sides of this issue. [more]

Guest Commentary: George Wuerthner's "On the Range"

With development pressures increasing on lands throughout the country, particularly in amenity-driven regions like the Rockies, Pacific Northwest, Northeast and elsewhere, the use of conservation easements to preclude subdivisions and other developments has become the conservation method of choice for many non-profit and governmental organizations. [more]

community conservation

A 7,500-acre expanse of land in the Blackfoot Valley, holding working agricultural lands, wildlife habitat and tributaries crucial to spawning cutthroat and bull trout, has been protected for perpetuity with a conservation easement.

This week, the Sunny Slope Grazing Association finalized plans to sell the easement on 4,682 acres of its grazing land, allowing it to buy an adjacent 2,888 acres The Nature Conservancy had purchased from Plum Creek Timber Co., also put under an easement.

The land is in the foothills southwest of Lincoln abutting the Helena National Forest, and the easement, held by Missoula-based Five Valleys Land Trust, will limit development on three and a half miles of Blackfoot River frontage and more than fourteen miles of its tributaries. It's Five Valleys Land Trust's largest easement to date. [more]

hot springs

Montana’s cool La Nina year has meant that much of the state’s high country snow pack is close to its historic average, but according to regional experts, how long it sticks around depends on this spring’s temperatures.

“What happens over the next three weeks of May is going to be critical,” said Jesse Aber of the Montana Drought Committee. “We’re kind of holding our breath and crossing our fingers.”

According to Aber, warm spring weather can dash all hopes that the snow pack will carry on into summer, easing drought conditions and possibly reducing the intensity of the coming fire season. [more]

Column: Idaho

The U.S. Army is shipping 6,700 tons of contaminated sand to Idaho from Kuwait. It will arrive at American Ecology in Grandview, Idaho, sometime in May.

Grandview, population 470, is 42 miles south of Boise in Owyhee County.

The sand is from Camp Doha in Kuwait, a former Army warehouse complex used by Army Forces Central Command. The sand absorbed depleted uranium when some spent ammunition was caught in a fire (addition May 1:during the first Gulf War.) [more]

new west news brief

After five years of review, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that bull trout, one of Montana’s largest native trout, should remain protected under the Endangered Species Act, the AP reports.

"The health of bull trout populations varies by location but overall, the species in the United States still needs protection," said Ren Lohoefener, director of Fish and Wildlife's Pacific Region.

Bull trout, considered the most environmentally sensitive cold-water fish around, have been listed as a threatened species in the Lower 48 for ten years. But in recent years, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho, and the Idaho congressional delegation have contested the trout’s status as “endangered.”

Click here for more. [more]

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