Missouri Breaks Monument Plan Released

Summary: In January, 2001, President William J. Clinton signed the proclamation creating the Upper Missouri River Breaks as a national monument. The proclamation established the values to be protected by the designation, and provided some guidelines for management. The Bureau of Land Management was then directed to prepare a Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the Monument. In January 2008, after five years in the making, the BLM released a final plan.

At best, the Monument RMP is a modest improvement over past management. In significant ways it falls far short of genuinely protecting the extraordinary scenic, natural, historic, and cultural values for which this National Monument was created. A national monument designation doesn’t offer the same level of protection as Wilderness, but it still should provide a higher level of protection than other unprotected multiple-use BLM lands.

Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument [click image to enlarge]

Under the BLM management, an unprecedented six backcountry airstrips will be authorized, three of which are in the Bullwhacker, an area described in the proclamation as containing “some of the wildest country on all the Great Plains.” A high road density will be retained with two-tracks leading into some of the most remote areas of the Monument. Despite an increase in motorized watercraft, a quiet non-motorized stretch of river is limited only to the lower portion of the Wild and Scenic Missouri River, only for three months, and only for four days each week during the three months. A new utility corridor will also be created and efforts to restore cottonwood galleries and riparian areas will vary little from the past, being too little and probably too late.

When all of these activities are combined with all of the allowed commercial activities, such as the projected drilling of 34 natural gas wells, livestock grazing, and probable future developments on private and state inholdings (of which the BLM has no management authority), this will be a national monument mostly in name only.

If this wild and scenic river and rugged prairie landscape is to remain something special, a better and more protective plan is needed which genuinely honors the Monument proclamation and the intent of the designation. The Montana Wilderness Association has challenged the decision and filed a “protest” with the BLM director’s office in Washington D.C.