Forest Service, counties at odds over Plum Creek easements

The Forest Service continues to push its liberal interpretation of Plum Creek road easements on public land in western Montana. Sen. Jon Tester has stood with the counties against what amounts to a huge give away to Plum Creek, the former timber company that has morphed into one of the West's largest real estate companies.

If we can fight this one off until the Obama administration takes office, we'll be in much better shape.

Can't tell which side is worse

It looks as though the Fish and Wildlife Service is headed back to the drawing board with wolf delisting in the Northern Rockies.

I don't know which side annoys us more, the livestock groups that oppose wolf reintroduction, or the enviro groups which oppose any sort of delisting.

The reintroduction of wolves in Montana/Idaho/Wyoming has been a smashing success. It's time to delist and get on with state management of the species. Montana and Idaho are ready. Wyoming needs to get its act together.

Bridges of Butte-Silver Bow County

Landowners eye bridges across the Big Hole River, with new development the goal.

Good news on griz

A study of grizzly bear DNA in and around Glacier National Park pegs the population at more than 750 animals. That number is higher than previous estimates, and generally reveals good news about griz populations in and around the Park.

Check that sweet griz photo by the Daily Inter Lake's Karen Nichols.

Back to the drawing board on wolf delisting

The Feds will scrap their previous plan for delisting wolves in the Northern Rockies, and hopefully come up with a plan that will hold up in court. Seriously — wolf populations are healthy. Maybe too healthy in the Idaho panhandle. This success story of the most important environmental law in the history of the planet — the Endangered Species Act — won't be complete until we celebrate recovery with a delisting party.

Restoration is messy

It looks as though the restoration of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers through the removal of the Milltown Dam isn't going as well as anticipated. That's not a huge surprise. What the models predict, and what nature actually unleashes in response to change are often two different things. Just as there are unintended consequences to efforts to manipulate or profit from natural resources, there can also be unanticipated consequences to attempts to reverse environmental degradation.

There's another look at the issue here, but you need to be a High Country News subscriber to access the story.

I recall a conversation I once had with an Arizona Game and Fish Department fisheries biologist. We were talking about the trout fishery at Lees Ferry on the Colorado River, and how efforts to change Glen Canyon Dam (which creates Lake Powell) might harm that tailwater fishery, or native fish farther down in the Grand Canyon. The biologist replied to one of my questions by remarking how some seem to believe all you need to do to reverse environmental harm is to remove the offending impact, be it a dam, cattle, logging, etc. But the reality is often far different. Sometimes the changes wrought by those changes make it difficult or impossible for an ecosystem to return to its preimpact conditions. The impact sets the ecosystem on a new trajectory, and it won't return to something resembling its early condition without a lot of hard work and patience.

Bucket biologists at it again

Will anglers ever stop moving their favorite fish around? OK, so I already know the answer to that question. Still, this is the kind of thing that makes native species recovery seem impossible. Bull trout are all but gone from the Flathead River system, thanks to aquatic introductions to the fisheries experiment that is Flathead Lake. Trust me, a serious bull trout fishery in the Middle and North forks would make those Flathead River tribs world class fisheries, which apparently they once was.

Swimmer drowns in South Fork

I'm getting sick of reading about this, but there's just been a drum beat of bad news on Montana rivers this summer. Here's another drowning, this time on the South Fork Flathead River, at a place called Devil's Elbow.

It just seems as though it's been one drowning after another. Maybe it's just because I'm paying closer attention.

Glacier on the brink

Great series from Missoulian reporter Michael Jamison on Glacier National Park and the threats to one of the world's great places. Go here, here and here for the latest on the Crown of the Continent.

Nice break

When was the last time we had a fire season categorized as "less than normal?" Last August the skies over the Flathead Valley were filled with smoke. I remember one afternoon driving down from West Glacier after a day guiding on the Middle Fork, and as I hit the valley floor saw that the smoke plume from the Chippy Creek Fire reached from horizon to horizon.

The cool spring and late runoff may have screwed up the fishing season, but at least we're enjoying an August with breathable air. That's become a rarity.

Connectivity matters

Even in the fast-growing Flathead Valley this is still a wide open place. But if we don't take steps now to preserve important wildlife corridors, we will lose them to development. This effort to preserve some of the last remaining wild shoreline on Flathead Lake deserves our support.

A few years ago I wrote a story about a statewide effort to preserve wildlife corridors in Arizona, something called the Arizona Linkages Project. Montana has a ways to go before in matches Arizona in terms of sprawl, but it is a lot easier to plan ahead than to try to fix things when the earth movers are rolling as folks in the Grand Canyon State are trying to do.

Wake up call

An interesting way to start the morning. Some folks just have a cup of coffee to perk up.

Put a stake through its heart

This is the project that would not die. How many times do we need to say NO to the disastrous idea of a cyanide heap-leach gold mine at the headwaters of the Blackfoot River?

The notion that the Montana law that bans cyanide heap-leach mining is a "taking" of private-property rights reveals the radical anti-government ideology of some on the right at its most extreme. Arguing that a citizens initiative that bans a mining technique with a well-documented history of environmental disasters and pollution — with downstream neighbors, also known as the citizens of Montana, usually footing the bill for clean up — is actually an argument advancing the political ideology of anarchy.

Access fight continues

The fight regarding bridge access points to rivers in Madison County underscores the reality that access opponents will stop at nothing to overturn Montana's Stream Access Law. That's why the fight regarding access at Mitchell Slough in the Bitterroot Valley is so important. Give access opponents a foot in the door you can expect their legions of attorneys and anti-access sycophants to set up camp in your favorite trout stream.

Let's hope the Montana Supreme Court gets it right on Mitchell Slough. It's the biggest threat to Montana's Stream Access law now before us.

Are talks good news?

It sounds like folks on both sides of the border are putting a friendly spin on recent talks regarding Canadian mining projects proposed in the Flathead River headwaters near Glacier National Park. If it works to stop these projects, great. But I'm not convinced the line-in-the-sand approach suggested by some Montana political leaders should be dropped just yet.

These mines need to be stopped, for good. The North Fork has been held hostage for too long.

Fishing picking up

The North Fork Flathead River is clear and dropping like a rock. Chernobyl ants have been the ticket for westslope cutts, which are hitting dries with abandon. The Middle Fork is also clearing and should start fishing well real soon.

Tony Werner of Chicago nailed this nice cutthroat near Polebridge on a North Fork float last week.

How it's supposed to work

If reintroduction is to be a long-term success, wolf supporters will have to get used to stories like this. Groups fighting proposed hunting seasons for wolves need to set aside their objections, or have their objections overruled in the courts. There are plenty of wolves out there and hunting and other lethal controls measures was always part of the deal. Those working to oppose hunting seasons for wolves are trying to change the rules at halftime.

Tale of two rivers

Here's a look at the confluence of the North and Middle Fork Flathead rivers looking upstream from Blankenship Bridge. That's the Middle Fork, coffee-with-cream colored, on the right. That mud line extends downstream as far as you can see from the bridge.

The North Fork may be fishable soon. The Middle Fork may clear up sometime around the archery hunting opener.

Waiting out high water

My winter project, a 15-foot stitch-and-glue wood drift boat, has yet to be in the water. We almost launched June 15, but that was near the beginning of this second spike of high water. Maybe next week. I'll be scouting the North Fork Flathead River in my raft this week.

I named the boat Zobe after my twin daughters, Zoe and Abbe.

Another death

A western Montana river claimed another life Sunday, as a man is missing and presumed drowned after a rafting accident on the Blackfoot.

Wear a PFD and be safe.