Where to go? What to do?

Marijuana, Guns and Oregon

It’s no secret there are a number of Oregonians who enjoy smoking marijuana. And while that may be the case, there are millions in the West who don’t enjoy having their water polluted to produce the plant.

An estimated 200,000 marijuana plants were discovered in raids during the Oregon growing and harvest season this year, according to state and federal documents.

And while that number may be staggering, pools filled with chemical fertilizers to grow the plants are a main nerve of concern among state officials and environmentalists. 

News Nugget

LEED for Weeds: New Program Will Rate Green Landscapes

A coalition formed by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden has created the nations first rating system for environmentally sensitive landscapes.

As LEED has done for buildings and Energy Star has done for appliances, the Sustainable Sites Initiatives will do for outside spaces. The groups describe the program like this: “Voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices.”

Nancy Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of ASLA said in a press release on the project, “While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green buildings, sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach. Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water, increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured until now.”

According to a USA Today story, “The rating will measure several criteria. They may include planting trees in a parking lot or paving with permeable materials to minimize heat and storm-water runoff. Or landscaping with native plants to reduce maintenance, irrigation and use of pesticides.”

Click here for that story and here for more information from the program itself.

Missoula Notebook

Tester’s Wilderness Bill: Q & A With Sun Mountain’s Tony Colter

I was curious about the potential effects of Sen. Tester’s act on businesses like Sun Mountain, so—after touring the sawmill—I interviewed Tony Colter, the company’s plant manager and vice president. He told me that Sun Mountain’s mill and logging operations combined could potentially employ up to 300 people, but times have been tough lately. Today, only 120 people work in the mill and finger-joint plant, and about 50 people work in logging. Sun Mountain hopes Tester’s bill could help turn things around.

Missoula Notebook

Tester’s Wilderness Bill: Q & A With Trout Unlimited’s Tom Reed

Senator Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act would protect 600,000 acres of Montana wilderness, but it would also mandate the logging of 10,000 acres per year in Montana’s national forests. Several mainstream environmental organizations, such as Trout Unlimited, the Montana Wilderness Association, and the National Wildlife Federation, have joined with recreation interests and local logging companies in support of the bill. Meanwhile, other environmental organizations, such as Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Wild West Institute, find themselves agreeing with many motorized access advocates that this bill is a bad idea.

I recently sat down with Tom Reed, the Montana/Wyoming backcountry organizer for Trout Unlimited, to get his response to some of the main objections raised by the bill’s critics.

Missoula Notebook

Is Tester’s Bill Our Best Bet For New Wilderness?

If passed, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act would designate the first new Wilderness Areas in Montana since 1983, and I’m up here, in a plane provided by the non-profit Ecoflight, to get a first-hand look at what the bill would actually mean to miles of backcountry in some of the most cherished wilderness in the state. Down below me is the battle zone: forests and landscapes treasured by hikers, loggers, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, horse packers, anglers, hunters, and oil and gas firms, among others. The Tester bill aims to protect wild land while satisfying as many of these groups as possible. But can it succeed?

New West Conference, Oct. 12-13

New West Conference: Start Your Journey in McCall, Idaho

NewWest.Net’s flagship conference, Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies, features a major new element this year: pre-conference tours. And one of those tours promises an entertaining and educational day and night in McCall, Idaho on Oct. 11.

Sponsored by Blackhawk on the River, the McCall program will include a tour of Brundage Mountain with Judd DeBoer, owner of Brundage and developer of several other projects in the area. Then there will be a hiking tour of the Blackhawk nature area with a local herbalist, as well as a horse-drawn carriage tour of the sprawling property. That will be followed by cocktails with Bob Vosskular of the Payette Valley Land Trust and Jim Fronk of Secesh Engineers, and then dinner along the Payette River. Tour participants will overnight at the high-end lodgings at Blackhawk, and then travel to Missoula for the opening of the conference on Monday afternoon, Oct. 12.

Participation in the tour is included with a full conference pass to the NewWest.Net conference, with a modest transportation surcharge for those traveling by bus to Missoula. Check out the conference website at www.newwest.net/realestate for all the details on the event, or call 406-829-1725.

Fairgrounds in Need of a Fix

Western Montana Fair’s Future is Fair Game

It’s a beloved Missoula tradition—one of the most anticipated weeks of summer by the kids’ set. It’s also in deep trouble.

Front gate admissions at the Western Montana Fair were down about $16,000 from last year. Fair manager Scot Meader blamed bad weather—including rain and cold—during several days of the event.

“Thursday, Friday and Saturday were really slow,” said Meader. “Kids’ Day [Thursday] really hurt us this year with the rain.”

But there are deeper problems than mere weather overshadowing the fair.

The dilapidated buildings that house the event have reached the end of their useful life. If the 48-acre facility doesn’t get a substantial upgrade in the near future—something far more drastic than another coat of white paint—it will soon be an unsuitable (as well as unsafe) site for the fair.

Alternative Energy

Windmill Ban Proposed for Missoula

The Missoula City Council will likely pass a ban on wind energy conversion systems – aka windmills in your backyard.

The ban would be part of the zoning ordinance update, which is being reviewed by the Plat, Annexation and Zoning committee.

An earlier draft of the zoning ordinance update contained detailed standards for small windmills that could be installed on residential lots to provide supplemental energy. Now the Planning Board is recommending that the installation of windmills be disallowed until further research and discussion can take place.

Mike Barton, senior planner at the Office of Planning and Grants (OPG), said that there has been no push to build windmills, and much opposition to the idea. “The idea of wind systems was demonized right out of the gate. We decided to take it off the agenda for now, and if the City Council sees a particular urgency later on, they can deal with it then.”

Profile: A Conservationist's Legacy

Steward Extraordinaire: Jim Cusker’s Long Commitment to Missoula Farmland

In 2005, the Missoula Board of County Commissioners appointed 18 rural landowners to the Open Lands Working Group, a new committee to help preserve rural Montana traditions, conserve open space and protect treasured landscapes from unwise development.

The members were asked to go to the areas of the county they represented and take photos of what was so special about the land. Naturally, they brought back pictures of mountains and meadows, rivers and birds, wildflowers and children, elk and trees –- all of the things Montanans love and want to save for future generations.

But one representative from Grass Valley brought back something different. Every single picture in Jim Cusker’s slideshow featured … irrigation pipes.

“If you just saw Jim’s slideshow, you’d think there was nothing but irrigated land out there,” says Wendy Ninteman, the western director of the Land Trust Alliance who shared the story. “Jim didn’t think there was anything more beautiful than that.”