NDAA - Wilderness watchers wonder what's next for Montana wild country

While everyone wonders if the U.S. Senate will pass a huge package of public lands legislation this week, many Montanans are already looking beyond the fate of the two wildland protection bills in the mix. “The positive thing is a logjam is going to break loose,” said Scott Bosse of American Rivers in Bozeman. “That helps future conservation bills. I think members of our delegation were reluctant to take on other big projects as long as the logjam existed.” Wilderness advocate Steward Brandborg felt quite the opposite. The man who helped pass the Wilderness Act of 1964 called last week’s omnibus addition to the National Defense Authorization Act “a lamentable drift.” “It doesn’t represent anything beyond a bad precedent for managing our public lands,” Brandborg said. “It’s a totally inadequate, half-assed approach that we shouldn’t allow.” Brandborg was also angry about the deal Republican Rep. Steve Daines cut with Democratic senators Jon Tester and John Walsh to downgrade 29,000 acres of eastern Montana wilderness study areas in return for supporting the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, which adds 67,000 acres to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. In addition to the Bob Marshall wilderness additions, the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act gave 208,000 acres conservation management status, which allows existing travel and recreation uses but prevents other development. And the North Fork Preservation Act took 400,000 acres along the North Fork of the Flathead River out of energy development. That dovetails with British Columbia legislation giving the northern part of the river similar protection. Montana’s trade-aways opened 112 million tons of coal tracts to the Signal Peak mining operation out of Roundup, while reassessing oil and gas potential on 15,000 acres south of the C.M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. Daines said that kind of balance between land protection and resource opportunity was essential in bringing the deal together. It also marked a nearly unprecedented release of wilderness study areas that had been hanging in limbo for almost 40 years...more