Northwest Montana Issues and Campaigns

Northwest Montana encompasses many pristine areas, ripe for protection as well as resource exploitation. Many of these wildlands are shared with Idaho and Canada. People throughout these areas are working in their communities to identify and protect special areas, ensure traditional recreation and livelihood are available for future generation, and aid agencies in their work by sharing their energy, personal experiences and personal opinions. The work includes: Transboundary issues related to the Flathead watershed, a Wilderness campaign in the Yaak Valley, projects related to the Kootenai National Forest, and projects related to the Sanders and Mineral County Forest Service. In each of these areas, Montana Wilderness Association is joining with other groups to continue or gain protection for existing wildlands.

Transboundary/Flathead
In 1977, Senator Max Baucus, D-MT, secured funding for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on a proposed coalmine in Canada. Based on the information collected, the International Joint Commission (IJC) became involved. The IJC is a negotiating committee made up of representatives from Canada and the United States charged with finding resolutions to transboundary disputes. Its report was built with the help of over 60 scientists and three years of study. It concludes that coal mining in the headwaters of the Canadian Flathead would have disastrous consequences downstream. As a result, the proposed mine was scrapped. The IJC also recommended that the two governments sit down and work out a long-term management plan to prevent future disputes. It's been 20 years since the IJC made that recommendation and once again the fight over development in the Headwaters is heating up, only this time the threat is twofold.

• The Cline Mine: The Cline Mining Corporation has proposed to build a coalmine on Foisey's Creek. Their chosen method, based on the coal seams, is mountain top removal. This method has completely destroyed rivers and their ecosystems in the Appalachian region of the US. Translate that into what could happen to not just the North Fork of the Flathead, but also Flathead Lake and the effects could be devastating. The proposal calls for 40 millions tons of coal to be removed in the next 20 years.
• British Petroleum & Coal-Bed Methane Development: In 2007, the government of British Columbia announced plans to give British Petroleum (BP) exclusive rights to appraise the potential for coal-bed methane development in the Crowsnest Field, a portion of which lies at the headwaters of the North Fork of the Flathead River. Coal-bed methane drilling not only comes with a spider-web of roads, used to access all the different well pads, it also has a massive byproduct of "produced" water that is a known pollutant. In order to release the gas from the coal seams, water is pumped out of the ground. Coal-bed mining operators often discharge “produced” water into rivers and streams. BP is proposing to re-inject this “produced” water back into the ground, though no company has proven this to be possible in the hydrologically complicated area around the headwaters.

The Provincial government of British Columbia ultimately has the last word in what happens to the headwaters of the North Fork of the Flathead, unless the Canadian government calls for the IJC to get involved, as the US has already done. If the IJC steps in, as it did in the late 70's, then the outcome could be different. The greater region around the Flathead valley, all the way into Canada, could finally have a management plan in place to help guide the uses of the region.

Several organizations are focused on these important transboundary issues. The Flathead Coaltion is a transboundary alliance of community, tribal, business and conservation interests, founded in 1975, with the mission of protecting the natural watersheds shared by British Columbia and Montana. The Flathead Basin Commission works to protect the existing high quality of the Flathead Lake aquatic environment; the waters that flow into, out of, or are the tributary to the Lake and; the natural resources and environment of the Flathead Basin. Finally, Wildsight works locally, regionally and globally to protect biodiversity and encourage sustainable communities in Canada’s Columbia and southern Rocky Mountain region.

Yaak Wilderness
The Yaak Valley is still home to all of the wildlife species that were present at the end of the last ice age; nothing has yet disappeared from this region. It is a place where grizzly bears, wolves, mountain goats, bull trout and lynx still roam. Roadless forests still exist in the Yaak—these are huge expanses of open space and rugged country. Yet amazingly, not a single acre of the Yaak Valley is protected. There are, however, plans in the works. As part of a broader county-wide plan the Lincoln County Coalition, made up of representatives from across the political and ideological spectrum, is putting together an economic development plan that includes Wilderness in the Yaak. Viable Wilderness proposals are hard to come by in the Yaak, a fiercely independent area and yet through patience and the willingness to work together, community members are making the dream of Wilderness in the Yaak a new possibility. The Yaak Valley Forest Council is a coalition of local organizations working to bring their communities together on a plan that will preserve wildlands as well as traditional ways of life.

Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition
The Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition (KFSC) is a broad coalition of groups, including timber, mining, motorized recreation, conservationists, elected officials and more. The KFSC works on projects and plans for the Kootenai National Forest to ensure the projects are win-win for everyone. The groups have been able to work together on projects with the forest service, get beyond the rhetoric, and create action on the ground. So far five projects have been approved by the coalition, all of them in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). In the future though, projects could move outside the WUI and the coalition is beginning to look at the broader forest as a whole, with a mind to issues like Wilderness, recreation and forest-wide planning.

Sanders/Mineral County Stakeholders Coalition
A new stakeholders group is currently in the formative stages. It will be very much like the KFSC in makeup and function. SMCSC will look at Forest Service projects on the both the southern Kootenai National Forest and the northwestern Lolo National Forest. There is the possibility that the SMCSC will look beyond the National Forests and try to work with other agencies.