Articles

June 30, 2010 -     It’s been a wet and cold spring in Montana, delaying runoff, messing with vegetable gardens and  hopefully helping make up for the very dry winter we had. But wet weather doesn’t stop the spring/summer field season from starting, and we’ve got folks all over Montana working on monitoring and data collection…

June 30, 2010 - Bethanie Walder   By now, nearly everyone involved in federal land management – from conservation activists to agency staff - embraces the notion that ensuring clean water and healthy populations of fish and wildlife will require proactive action on our part. Even Congress recognized this two years ago when it set out to accomplish these ends by investing in fixing the watershed problems caused by Forest Service roads (e.g. repairing and/or reclaiming roads and fixing fish culverts) – by creating the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative. So is it working?

June 30, 2010 -    Restoration ProgramOur Restoration Program staff have been kickin’ ass (hey, if Obama can say it, can’t we?), with some exciting results. Legacy RoadsOur Restoration Campaign Director, Sue Gunn, continues to put her magic money spell on the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (Legacy Roads and Trails), which has, to date, resulted in $180 million for Forest Service road reclamation, culvert upgrades and critical maintenance to protect and restore clean water.

June 30, 2010 -    USDA releases 5-year plan On June 11, 2010, the US Department of Agriculture released its 2010-2015 strategic plan, including its overarching plans for the Forest Service. Forest Service management was addressed in the second of the plan’s four goals: Ensure our national forest and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources.

June 29, 2010 - Bethanie Walder    Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, Willy Loman, Tony Soprano, and … the Forest Service? A diverse group with a common theme – tragic or fatal flaws. From ancient literature to modern times, people have written about, read about and dissected the concept of the fatal flaw. High school and college classes abound with papers about tragic heroes, fatal flaws, and what can be learned from them.

June 29, 2010 - Greg Peters    Wet snow starts to fall as Stan speaks again, “We’ll be pulling this one out too.” He points at a dirt track cutting through the lodgepole forest. “There’s a network of roads that heads back in there, it reconnects again just up ahead,” he continues. I look off to my right and wonder how many such networks spread through this part of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, each one pushing farther from the main road, each one a silent seduction for the folks who prefer motors to boots.

June 29, 2010 - Bethanie Walder   At first, the BP oil spill didn’t seem like a big deal. Perhaps in part because of how the media portrayed it, and in part because of a complete lack of understanding that it couldn’t be easily stopped.

March 24, 2010 - By Bethanie Walder   The snow and ice storms that buried the east coast just floated right by Missoula, leaving us with an extremely low snowpack and a mild winter. Perhaps that’s why some people call it climate change, instead of global warming… The warm weather here was a good partner to the busy winter we’ve had – preparing all sorts of things for the spring and summer.

March 24, 2010 -    New Study Points to Off-Road Vehicle Activity as Primary Source of Air Pollution The San Luis Obispo (CA) Air Control Board released a study Feb. 22 on the impacts of off-road vehicle use at the Oceano Dunes and the resultant air pollution at the nearby Nipomo Mesa.

March 24, 2010 - By Adam Rissien    The West Pioneer Wilderness Study Area (WSA), on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, has been a little quieter this winter following a victorious lawsuit challenging snowmobile grooming in this special place. Wildlands CPR and Friends of the Bitterroot challenged the re-issuance of a controversial permit that had authorized a snowmobile club to groom nearly 95 miles of trail inside the West Pioneer WSA. The settlement agreement (broken into two phases) does not prohibit snowmobiling, but it does eliminate trail grooming.