Opinion Piece by Kerry White: Opposing Forest and Recreation Act

Opposing Forest and Recreation Act
By Kerry White
The movement by environmental organizations to remove people from the land, both federally managed and private, has found a new friend in Senator Tester. The Montana Senator that went to San Francisco and the East Coast to finance his campaign is paying back all those green tea drinkers for all the money they gave him.
The Senator’s letter in the July 19th edition of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle is full of myths and deception. First and foremost is the title of the bill which he names the “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act”. The 7000 acres per year of never to be seen timber harvests will do nothing for the ailing industry. With over 1.6 million acres of beetle killed forest in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest (B-D) it would take over 200 years to address just the dead trees that exist today at only 7000 acres per year harvested as proposed in the bill. The buzz words of restoration and stewardship logging is just another way to say, temporary jobs through road ripping projects. Never will the American public be able to benefit from this resource as the infrastructure will be gone. According to the energy analysis just completed by Steve Jennings of Dillon, over 3.4 billion dollars of biomass energy stands dead in the B-D.
Senator Tester also makes reference in the title to “Recreation” and how this will “protect” and “guarantee access” for multiple use recreation like ATV, snowmobiles, motorcycles and bicycles. How can this be so Senator Tester when 1000s of Montana citizens have contacted you in opposition to the Beaverhead Partnership Agreement which is what this bill really represents? The bill clearly has language that limits all snowmobiles to existing trails with no off trail riding. Many of the areas targeted for wilderness in the Senator’s bill have numerous roads and trails that will become off limits to over 97% of the recreating public. Less than 3% of the public recreates in wilderness areas according to a 2007 study done by the Forest Service in the B-D National Forest.
The Montana legislature in 2005 passed HJ9 out of the House of Representatives but the bill was stalled by then Senate President Jon Tester in a committee he chaired. Had this bill passed, a study would have been completed that analyzed the economic affect of wilderness on Montana both positive and negative. It was Mr. Tester in 2005 that refused to get the facts on the true adverse economic impacts that wilderness has on not only wildlife and watersheds but also to people and private property. Senator Barrett this year has announced that she will again introduce HJ9 in the 2011 legislature and I suggest to Senator Tester that we wait for the facts before locking up more land of no use.
According to Robin McCullogh, a professor at the Butte School of Mines, The B-D has vast reserves of precious metals that provide the raw materials for almost everything used in peoples day to day activities. He states that to lock land in wilderness before identifying the location of the mineral reserves present is like “cutting your nose off despite your face”. The proposed wilderness areas in this bill have many of these resources in them. The proposed wilderness areas in the bill also have private in-holdings. The B-D contains 1000s of small family mining claims. The Forest Service is required to provide “reasonable access” to these in-holdings in wilderness but as with the claims that existed in the Absorkee Beartooth wilderness when it was established the Forest Service made it harder and harder for these folks to access and work their claims. Those claims are now gone along with a part of our Montana heritage.
Several areas proposed for wilderness in the bill have active established grazing permits and Senator Tester is putting at risk those agricultural operations by removing the ability for the rancher to care for his animals when using the permitted area. No motorized or mechanized use is allowed in wilderness. For those that don’t understand the purpose of grazing leases, here is a short course of “Grazing 101”. Cattle winter on the rancher’s private land. In the summer when the rancher needs his private land to produce hay to carry the animals through the winter he needs a place to put them. He pays the Forest Service according to the AMU (animal management unit) price per animal. This benefits the land through natural fertilizer and reduces the fire hazard by reducing the grass fuel load. The grazing permit also greatly benefits the public by providing open space at no cost to the taxpayer. A sustainable and viable ranch operation provides the vast open space that we all enjoy everyday in Montana and the Senator should realize the damage this bill will most certainly do to this industry.
Senator Tester also states in his letter “as always, let me know what you think of the Forest Jobs Bill”. I have a friend that has been trying to contact Senator Tester’s office in D.C. for 2 weeks with not a single return call. Senator tester spoke at the annual Montana Wilderness Association meeting a couple months ago and promised a wilderness bill. When the people in the Southern part of the B-D heard about the Senator bringing forward a wilderness bill a number of people, including Senator Barrett, House Representative Welborn, Dillon Mayor Martin Malesich, Madison County Commissioner Dave Schultz, Chairman of the Beaverhead Economic Development Corporation J.S. Turner, Chairman of the Beaverhead Resource Use Committee Bill Allen and Beaverhead County Commissioners Tom Rice, Garth Haugland and Mike McGinley, who is currently the President of the Montana Association of Counties, all signed a letter asking the Senator to attend an important meeting in Dillon to discuss the economic impacts this bill would have on their cities and counties. I would have thought that Senator Tester would have responded to this invitation and the many concerns they had with putting more wilderness in their area but the Senator was a no show. Is this truly being a representative of the voters that elected the Senator?
I would hope that the people of Montana take a hard look at this 85 page bill and then try to contact Senator Tester with your reasons for opposing this legislation. Wilderness designations are forever and thank heavens Tester’s term in office is half over.
Kerry White is the Executive Director of Citizens for Balanced Use