Bozeman News

FORMER MONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION COUNCIL MEMBERS BOLT

UPDATED, 10 am, 2-18-10: After seeing this article, two more former MWA council members, Susan Colvin and Dan Heinz (past vice-president) have joined the list and signed the letter opposing Tester’s bill, bringing the total to 18.

Anybody who has followed the torturous, eight-month path of Senator Jon Tester’s (D-MT) Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, S. 1470, already knows the bill has caused a split among conservationists. But that split just got a lot more more serious.

From the Flathead Beacon

The Montana University System is staring down the barrel of a 5 percent cut in state funding as part of a statewide effort to battle a dwindling budget. With many campuses seeing significant recession-induced population increases, however, a budget cut may mean have to do more with less.

The Board of Regents, the single authority for university spending, agreed in January that $7.65 million in cuts might be possible for fiscal year 2011 if the budget problem still persists.

And while the major universities and colleges are taking the brunt of the cuts, community colleges may also feel some of the sting. 

New West Book Review

Deep Creek
by Dana Hand
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 320 pages, $25

Dana Hand’s debut novel Deep Creek opens with an unforgettable scene.  In 1887, a small-town judge and his daughter go fishing in the Snake River in Idaho Territory.  The girl throws in a line and catches a man.  Soon, more bodies are bobbing in the flood-swollen river and the judge, Joe Vincent, has a mass-murder mystery on his hands.

The corpses—shot, hacked, disemboweled, dismembered—are Chinese miners who have traveled deep into Hells Canyon where they met their fate at the titular Deep Creek.  Even though the body count rises to forty, law enforcement authorities and politicians in Lewiston (home to “fifteen hundred whites and five hundred Celestials”) are slow to launch an investigation.

THE GRAND COMPROMISE

After thinking about it for about forty years, I’ve finally decided to throw out an idea for solving Montana’s totally messed up, mean-spirited, seemingly endless wilderness debate. And it might work in other states, too.

If I were your senator (scary thought, eh?), I’d much prefer to address this thorny issue all at once instead of stringing it out for decades. This is opposite of piecemeal approach preferred your real Senators, including Jon Tester (D-MT) and his beleaguered Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, S. 1470. I admire Tester’s effort, and I’ve supported S. 1470, (with two amendments he rejected), but this bill virtually guarantees we’ll be fighting over the last roadless lands for the rest of my life.

Polar Bears, Melting Ice Floes, and Us

Polar explorer Will Steger, one of the most accomplished Arctic adventurers of all time, has seen and done things that most mortals can’t imagine. In 1986 he led the first dogsled expedition to the North Pole without resupply; in 1988, he traversed Greenland by dogsled, a 1,600-mile trip that was the longest of its kind ever; in 1989 he launched the first dogsled traverse of Antarctica, a seven-month, 3,471-mile journey.

What Steger never expected to see was the end of ice. And what he never expected to be doing is what he’s engaged in right now: a battle to fight climate change and save the planet.

Global warming doubters might refute the scientific studies, Steger says. What they can’t do, he believes, is refute eyewitness reports and photos from someone who’s explored the territory for 45 years. So Steger has taken the injured Arctic on the road.

Planning

Local planners in the Intermountain West are the ones who could ultimately shape the way climate change effects the region, say the authors of a new report released this week by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute.

State, regional and federal policies can still make an impact, yes, but the real impact happens on the ground, particularly in how our communities grow, say the report’s authors.

“While policies at the federal, regional, and state levels serve as important guideposts for reaching sustainability, they require local implementation to be successful. In most communities, land use and transportation policies potentially reap the greatest rewards,” the authors write in the executive summary.

GUEST COMMENTARY

Want to spend a week this summer with some of the nation’s best-known outdoor writers, practicing the craft of outdoor writing in writer-friendly Missoula? 

The Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) will host its first Goldenrod Writing Workshop at the University of Montana in Missoula August 1-7, 2010. Open to both novice communicators and published professionals, the week-long workshop is designed to improve skills in outdoor, nature and environmental writing. 

BULLETIN BOARD

This information was provided by the Wildlands Network. NewWest’s bulletin board offers press releases with a wide variety of views and news about the West.

DeBeque, Colorado—A DNA test of scat samples is all that remains before a western Colorado ranch owner knows for sure if wild wolves are present on his land.

Paul R. Vahldiek, Jr., majority shareholder and CEO of The High Lonesome Ranch, a mixed use landscape sprawling across Colorado’s west slope northeast of Grand Junction, awaits results of the DNA test as the final piece of evidence needed to confirm wolf habitation. One of the ranch managers and an expert wildlife tracker have already reported actual sightings of wolves, and positively identified tracks and howling on the vast acreage.

Big Sky Bum Out

They’re not on the ski slopes. They’re not in the bars. Have all the ski bums left Big Sky?

“A lot of guys are skiing backcountry now because it’s free,” said John the physical therapist. “Also, a lot of them worked construction to support their skiing habits. Those jobs don’t exist any more.”

A footnote to the current recession is its effect on Big Sky’s ski bum culture—girls and guys who live to ski and will work for ski passes or at part-time jobs that permit time off on powder days.

Forest Jobs and Recreation Act

Sen. Jon Tester today announced that he hopes to make revisions to his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, legislation that has drawn widespread support, criticism and suggestions from Montanans—some of which Tester said he’d insert into the legislation.

The Senator, speaking at a small press conference in Missoula, said the proposed 21 changes—some involving simple word clarifications and others more meaty—were brought to his attention by a wide variety of individuals and organizations, from the Montana Wood Products Association and the University of Montana School of Forestry to environmental groups and the Montana AFL-CIO.