WASHINGTON – In the wake of the more than 160,000-acre Rice Ridge Fire, U.S. Senator Jon Tester continues to pursue the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act. While many of the supporters and those opposed remain unchanged in their opinion of the legislation, all voiced concerns about forest management, policy and funding issues need to be addressed in response to the Rice Ridge Fire.
Sen. Tester requested the BCSA be included in a legislative hearing from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Sept. 6 after initially introducing the Act in February.
"Montanans have spent over a decade crafting the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project to improve forest management and protect thousands of acres of public land," Tester said. "It is past time we moved forward with this responsible proposal, which has garnered the support of outfitters, timber companies, local government, and outdoorsmen and women from all walks of life."
The Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act would:
• Designate 79,062 acres of land as wilderness (4,463 acres to the Mission Mountain Wilderness, 47,207 acres to the Bob Marshall Wilderness and 27,392 acres to the Scapegoat Wilderness)
• Develop a comprehensive trail plan on the Lolo National Forest.
• Open 2,247 acres of land to snowmobiling (Otatsy Recreation Area).
• Protect access to 3,835 acres of land for mountain biking (Spread Mountain Recreation Area).
The Grizzly Basin of the Swan Range Wilderness Addition to the Bob Marshall was the only proposed wilderness east of Highway 83 that was not affected by the Rice Ridge Fire. Nearly all of the Spread Mountain Recreation Area and Otatsy Recreation Areas burned in the fire.
While the severity of the burn has not been assessed in these proposed areas, proponents of the legislation are unwavering.
Missoula County Commissioners continue to remain supportive of the project and legislation. They said the project is a result of years of collaborative discussions and public input that has resulted in positive action on the ground. The grass-roots project birthed the legislation proposed by Sen. Tester.
"We do not believe that the fire has changed the values of, or desired outcomes for, the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project or Senator Tester's Act," wrote the Commissioners in an email. "We see no reason why the Rice Ridge Fire should impinge on bringing the Act into law."
"From our perspective, the Rice Ridge Fire has had an incredible impact on a very large landscape but that does not change our interest in seeing the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project go forward," said Resource Manager Gordy Sanders with Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Inc. and member of the steering committee. "Our focus is on the landscape as it exists which doesn't change in terms of the topography and what would be a natural addition to the Bob Marshall [Scapegoat and Mission Mountain] Wilderness."
Roger Marshall, Seeley-Swan Task Force member and BCSA Steering Committee member, agrees with Sanders. "Much of the landscape targeted for inclusion is not worthy of intensive forest management. The land is just too steep and rocky for the most part. Resolving where the lines are from front country management versus back country management ... will help guide future work where fire mitigation should be applied and natural fire can occur."
Task Force member Cory Calnan added, "The BCSA, in some form or another has been around for quite some time in some fashion or another. We need to keep the momentum going and cannot afford another 10-plus years of planning and no on the ground action."
Past President of the Montana Wilderness Association and Steering Committee Member Lee Boman said the Rice Ridge Fire "has not changed our approach or lessened our commitment to the Blackfoot Clearwater as it is written. We continue to urge Senator Daines and Congressman Gianforte to join Senator Tester in championing this bill."
The Backcountry Horsemen of Montana feel that fire is a natural event. While Chairman Brad Pollman anticipates that trail maintenance efforts will increase due to more downed trees across the trails, the area designated as wilderness should still be preserved.
While the supporters remain firm in their commitment to the project, the opponents see the need to reevaluate.
Owner of Kurt's Polaris Curtis Friede feels that the Rice Ridge Fire changes the landscape enough that people should question why it should be preserved. He would like to see the Forest Service do a better job of managing the land and a wilderness designation limits their ability to manage it with anything other than fire.
"Even though all that country was pristine, it's not pristine anymore," said Friede. "For me it hasn't changed anything because there needs to be no more wilderness. Hopefully, the Forest Service learns that the general public doesn't want this wilderness and they don't want the Forest Service managing it that way. It's not healthy for our communities, it's not healthy for our people and it's not healthy for our animals."
Friede is concerned once the land is converted to wilderness, the general public will see it as one more chunk of ground that they can't access because very few people utilize wilderness.
The Seeley-Swan ATV Club agrees with Friede. They sent an email in opposition to the proposed legislation during the initial stages of development but have not been involved since.
"There is no way we could support it now," said Club President Dave Sharbono. "Now it's all burnt up and we don't even know what is out there. I think we should be back to square one and reevaluate everything the fire touched. There may be something we could come to an agreement on but without meetings we aren't going to find out what the public really wants and the needs of the people here."
ATV Club Vice President Ken Sharbono added he feels strongly that Tester and the steering committee should talk to the people they say endorsed the BCSP and the Act. While the ATV Club is listed as one of the supporters on the project website, blackfootclearwater.org, they are one of at least five groups listed that have not formally endorsed the project.
"When Tester was over there [at the Rich Ranch in Feb. 2017] he was talking like he had endorsement of all of Seeley Lake and that is not right," said Sharbono.
Beyond the scope of the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act, the Rice Ridge Fire brings up several other issues and questions that local groups and organizations hope to have the opportunity to discuss in the near future:
• The opportunity for an Expedited Situation Determination from the chief of the Forest Service to expedite salvage logging projects within the burn area.
• Taking opportunities to look at the entire landscape and discuss how to integrate fuel mitigation objectives and priorities across all properties and ownership. This includes more discussions with homeowners and taking into consideration changes produced by the fire.
• Make a management shift in local communities and the forests around them to be resilient to fire and its effects using a more aggressive forest management strategy.
• Ask the questions: How do we want our smoke and how do we want our fire? The community needs to become bigger supporters of prescribed fire under more favorable conditions.
• Engage in a community-based process to ensure all values are included in a respectful conversation on how the fires impacted the communities and identify the best response to future events.
• The need to pass the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act so the Forest Service can stop spending a majority of its budget on fighting fires and again use its funds for what those funds are intended, such as maintaining trails, campgrounds and picnic areas; treating noxious weeds and completing forest restoration projects.
• Better address the changing climate and the wildfires that result from drought, early snow runoff and other factors.
• Updates to the Missoula County Community Wildfire Protection Plan and the Seeley-Swan Fire Plan that include the lessons learned this past summer.
• Revisit the Forest Service's "Let it Burn" policy except where the fire was threatening structures or a community. This policy allowed the fire to go from something manageable to "the size of a giant" that was dependent on the wind.
• The current fuel conditions on the National Forest lands where there has been no thinning and logging are unmanageable for anything but catastrophic wildfire. Thinning and logging not only reduces the wildfire intensity making it more manageable, it also creates healthier trees and forest.
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