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book review

Reading The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Searing Wall Street and Washington, by David Sirota, is a bit like a cross-country road trip with an insistent guy who talks the whole time.

The thing is, Sirota's saying stuff you should probably hear, and he goes to places you need to go, but he's tough to follow at first. He starts in Helena, Mont., with a barrage of information about the partisan political machinations of the state's most recent biannual legislature, and he tosses other stuff in at a dizzying pace and with a good dose of populist outrage: from vermiculite poisoning in Libby to Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting of his hunting companion to century-old labor wars to an aside about how some Helena locals referred to him (Sirota) as a "city mouse."

His story gains traction when it becomes clear that he's not finding a uniform populist movement in America where there isn't any. Sirota reports on the outrage felt by working people, whether it is channeled toward big business or misdirected at Mexican immigrants. [more]

CLASS ACTION SUITS TO BE FILED TUESDAY IN ARIZONA, COLORADO

Enough is enough, say the owners of our national forests. And they may have finally found a way to spike the Recreation Access Tax or RAT.

After years of working through cumbersome administrative channels and several rounds in criminal court, people interested in reasonable and free access to their public land have dragged the Forest Service (FS) into civil court. In addition to asking for injunctions against collecting "illegal" fees while the case is being litigated and if successful the fee program terminated, the plaintiffs in the class action complaints--to be filed tomorrow morning in Arizona and Colorado--want all fee collection signs removed and all fees collected through the years under the program returned to the people who shouldn't have had to pay them.

Suffice to say, it's panic time in the FS offices back in Washington, D.C. [more]

mICROBREW mONTANA

When I'm interviewing brewery owners for the Microbrew Montana series, I always ask the same question: What's different about your operation compared to the other 26 Montana breweries?

When visiting Tamarack Brewing in Lakeside, a rapidly growing berg on the west shore of expansive Flathead Lake, I thought I knew the answer as soon as I walked through the front door. But when the co-owner Craig Koontz brought out the brandy snifters, I realized I knew only part of the answer. [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]

2008 COMMENTS WORTH REPEATING III

Over the past two years, I've been periodically posting selections of my favorite comments from readers of my columns and articles. I plan to continue doing this, but differently. Instead of listing comments chronologically, I've edited them into general subject areas. In this case, here are a few insightful comments that came in over the past few months on several articles on the wilderness drought and the green group feud that keeps it alive and if not endless. Enjoy.

Editor's Note: For a complete list of Comments Worth Repeating, click here.
[more]

new west news brief

Bill Clinton is coming to Billings May 10 to stump for his wife Hillary in the run up to Montana's June 3 presidential primary. He'll be speaking at the Truman Day Dinner, a Yellowstone County Democratic fundraiser.

This will be the former president's second stop in Montana in as many months. In early April he visited Havre, Great Falls, Helena and Butte.

We'll have more information on Bill Clinton's visit as it becomes available. [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]

from timberlands to subdivisions

The dust kicked up by closed-door negotiations between the U.S. Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Company to amend forest road easements brought Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey to Missoula Monday, where he apologized for keeping western Montana counties in the dark but did little to ease concerns that local communities will increasingly bear the burden of Plum Creek's transition into residential real estate.

Rey, a Bush Administration appointee and overseer of the Forest Service, said he's "extremely sensitive" to the effects the development of Plum Creek's timber lands could have -- increased firefighting in the wildland-urban interface, road maintenance and other public service costs, plus environmental impacts -- "but that sensitivity does not empower me to write new laws," he said, and in the end Plum Creek can do whatever it wants with its land.

"You ought to think harder about executing these responsibilities yourselves," he said, whether through zoning or other means. [more]

New West News Brief

With more than half of the Yellowstone National Park bison population removed this season due to slaughter, winter weather and hunting, the Interagency Bison Management has halted all additional deaths and are holding 255 cows and calves until the grass greens.

Meanwhile, an estimated 600,000 pounds of meat from the slaughtered 1,700 bison is currently being distributed to Montana tribes and food banks, reports the Billings Gazette. An additional 700 are estimated dead due to weather.

The Montana Food Bank network recently purchased 15,000 pounds of bison meat that will be distributed to 189 banks throughout the state, perfect timing with the February recall of 143 million pounds of Californian beef. [more]

12 Groups file on first day allowed

As expected, a coalition of 12 environmental and animal-rights groups filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. seeking to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The lawsuit seeks a immediate injunction to protect gray wolves from public hunting and aims to return the wolf to federal management under the Endangered Species Act. Gray wolves were officially delisted on March 28th.

“We’re trying to prevent the wolf slaughter from going forward,” said Doug Honnold, managing attorney of the Bozeman office of Earthjustice, the legal organization representing the coalition.

The groups argue state management plans fail to provide adequate protection for the species, especially against indiscriminate public hunting. Instead of protection, state management actually promotes the killing of wolves, Honnold said. [more]

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