"STATEWIDE WILDERNESS BILL" COMING SOON
Tester Ready to Test Political Waters on Wilderness Issue
Montana Senator plans to combine three local collaborative efforts into one bill. No word on specifically what it will include.By Bill Schneider, 6-22-09
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| Monture Creek, proposed as an addition to the Bob Marchall Wilderness. Phot by George Wuerthner. | |
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After 26 years, will this be the year Montana breaks the Wilderness Drought?
Perhaps. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and his staff are working hard with stakeholders right now and preparing to introduce a bill that combines aspects of three collaborative efforts that could loosely be defined as a statewide wilderness bill, but it probably will not have the word “wilderness” in the title.
Tester plans to try to codify the basis of the controversial collaboration in Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in southwestern Montana (called the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership or BDP) with two similar but smaller local consensus efforts in the Seeley Lake area (called the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project) and in the Yaak area in far northwestern Montana (called the Three Rivers Challenge).
Collectively the three projects recommend designating about 670,000 acres of new Wilderness and provide major relief for Montana’s ailing timber industry by dedicating more than 2 million acres of roadless and non-roadless lands in Montana’s national forests to stewardship timber management. But these numbers may not match those proposed in the pending legislation.
Information is sketchy and unofficial because Tester’s staff and representatives of major wilderness groups, all contacted by NewWest.Net, acknowledge that the bill is “imminent,” but don’t want to talk about it publicly, yet. The bill’s drafters are still working on the legislation, particularly how to standardize the timber industry relief provisions of the three collaborative efforts as well as the proposed Wilderness boundaries and concerns from mountain bikers who have expressed their fears, most recently with a full-page ad in the Montana Standard, that too many trails will be closed to bicycling.
NewWest.Net will update this article as more details become available.
For more on Montana’s Wilderness Drought, click here.
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Comments
In Lincoln County, sawmills no longer exists except for one small cedar outfit.
In the Blackfoot, Pyramid is willing to throw everyone else under the bus in order to score some kind of operating base. The same applies for Sun Mountain. Close all the roads, lock everything up to everyone, but so long as I have enough wood to run my mill, I don't care....
The Quisling Wilderness....I like it!
WTF!!!!!! Can't we know before hand what these changes to OUR way of life will be????
The Blackfoot-Clearwater project is only codifying areas as wilderness that have been managed as wilderness for years like Monture Creek and the North Fork of the Blackfoot. These areas are to economically important for tourism (hunting outfitters mostly) to build roads through. Its provisions give far more to the timber industry than to the wilderness movement.
I don't know much about the Yaak proposal, but it's a shame the Blackfoot-Clearwater is getting thrown in with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge. It's a pretty long stretch to call the B-D a collaborative.
I'm going to have to disagree pretty much with the entire Challenge. Hundreds of millions have gone into it--basically a gift for TNC and Plum Creek. Further, I've just "grounded" several areas of the Montana Legacy Project and am stunned at the price paid and the lack of anything that will return value.
You guys may think this is all great, but let's face it. Other people paid for it, and they have been SCREWED. Other Peoples Money...OPM for short, say it like "opium" and that's how the politicians are acting.
Furthermore, at the very least, wilderness designation preempts too many cost-effective options for trails maintenance and fire fighting/fire prescription.
The Omnibus Wilderness bill created a new Wilderness in Oregon, along the CA border, named the Soda Mountain Wilderness. It is in transition zone between the old geology of the Siskiyou Mountains and the newer geology of the Cascades, and has a variety of indigenous plants only found there. It was created out of a mixture of public lands and is gerrymandered around private holdings. There were several grazing allotments that were bought out, and the Green community was just tickled to finally get that land declared Wilderness.
The newspaper today has a press release from the BLM concerning the 17 (yes..seventeen) roads that are being barricaded, and the installation of boundary markers.
So much for only roadless areas considered for "wilderness" untrammeled by the hand of man. The Wilderness part is inside the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Segments of roads that lead to popular trail heads will be blocked to motor vehicles.
Evidently, roaded areas are NOT off limits to big W wilderness designation, especially when Congress can bundle a couple of hundred proposals into one bill, not have a hearing, and pass it to make the majority's payments and promises to voters good. And therein lies part of the problem with NREPA: inclusion of roaded areas.
The Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project has little to do with the Montana Legacy Project. I assume that some of the stewardship contracting funding it includes may go to restoration work on some of the former Plum Creek lands. Other than that, entirely different projects!
The trail maintenance of both the Monture Creek and North Fork trails is usually not done with mechanization anyways. Most of the maintenance is done by the outfitters who use it or the the backcountry horsemen. Both are usually en route to the wilderness, so they don't usually even carry a chainsaw.
It's also an area that has generally been determined to be appropriate for wildland fire use. The last fire that started near Monture, they just let burn. The forest service is also doing fuels treatments between these areas and the nearby communities, so fighting fire in this area shouldn't be necessary.
As for management and burning, what was that monster that burnt out onto the flats at the elk range at Blackleaf on the Front back in 1988 or so? Might be "natural" and all that, but still, was it a truly a beneficient event? Might there be a history of induced historical fires in centuries past that indicate this wasn't au naturel?
And sorry for my confusion, but there are so many of these rob- working-peter-to-benefit-eco-paul wilderness proposals popping up, it's hard to keep track.
And Bear brings up the point of de-roading to magically create "roadless and therefore suitable" lands for wilderness. That's WAY beyond the intent of the Wilderness Act.
Dave, I understand your frustration with some wilderness proposals, but the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project isn't a "rob working peter to pay eco Paul" wilderness. In terms of wilderness, it's only making official the status quo. Honestly, the only reason I can figure for the the Wilderness Society to support this is that they must organizationally be coming around to supporting a balance of working forests and wilderness. Letters they've sent to Congress and the president support that as well.
Many more logical wilderness advocates recognize that the security and health of wilderness is dependent upon the management of the surrounding lands. Most sane folks recognize that if we have a true resource shortage, no legal protection in the world will keep people from cutting timber or mining in the wilderness.
The public should know that when you contact Senator Tester's office they are refusing to share with constituents a copy of the draft legislation. Ironically they are happy to give you the run-around and take down your comments, but how in the hell can you comment on the merits of a Wilderness bill if Tester's office refuses to share with their constituents any of the details? Apparently word on the street is that Tester's office will be introducing his Wilderness bill on Monday, July 13 and unless you’re a "key stakeholder" (ie a timber mill owner or a well-funded, politically-connected enviro) you'll have to wait your turn to see the legislation until the Senator and his staff are good and ready for you to see it (ie after their press conference).
This behavior on the part of Senator Tester and his key staff smacks of the same type of a closed-door, selective and exclusive process that has dogged the Beaverhead Deerlodge Partnership. Then again, perhaps this is because of the close relationship some of Tester's key staff have with promoters of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership. Regardless, this is not the type of leadership or behavior that Senator Tester promised when we elected him.