The Flathead River Management Plan recognizes that limits need to be imposed on recreational use before ecological values are threatened or permanently ruined. But as 45-year residents of the Blankenship neighborhood we believe that the thresholds of acceptable use were reached at least a decade ago. The plan’s intention to do no more harm is admirable, but if the numbers of floaters, fishermen and campers aren’t drastically reduced the river will still be too crowded, and fishery health, water purity, wildlife security, and the quality of users’ experience will continue declining.
The Forest Service can’t enforce the existing regulations, as minimal as they are. How will they enforce their proposals to regulate group size, reduce noise, block motorized access to gravel bars and ensure that people don’t relieve themselves within 200 feet of the river?
We’ve asked the Forest Service repeatedly to prohibit motorized travel and camping below the high-water mark, and hope this happens immediately. When does this rule go into effect? And why are floaters exempt? They can easily carry their rafts, kayaks, canoes and tubes down to the water. If drift boat users can’t figure out how to launch their boats without driving on gravel bars, they can go elsewhere. After all, this is one of the most pristine rivers, flowing with some of the finest water, in the world. By driving below the high-water mark, for any reason, we are blithely treating it like a storm sewer. Restrictions that seem harsh now will prove to be prescient.
The proposal to build a campground in the “upland area” (as the plan refers to it) near Blankenship bridge also concerns us. We assume that “upland” refers to the lodgepole/spruce forest on the west side of the river. This forest is surrounded by a floodplain that extends from the river to a gravel bench about 500 feet from the Rabe Road junction. At least four distinct channels carry water through it when the river floods. The Forest Service is either mistaken when they refer to this island of conifers as an “upland” forest, or hoping that the public won’t question the wisdom of building a campground here. At any rate, this is drier riparian habitat than the rest of the floodplain. It will gradually become a cottonwood/aspen forest as the conifers die. Most of the floodplain is a moist riparian habitat composed of willow, alder and hawthorn thickets that provide food and shelter for whitetails, moose and elk, beavers, otters, ducks and grouse, and a wide variety of songbirds. It also the finest grizzly and black bear habitat in our neighborhood. In the spring, the bears graze on emerging grass and succulent forbs, climb the cottonwoods and aspens to browse on buds, and lick sap from the conifers’ cambium. In the fall they travel here to feed on hawthorn berries. When huckleberries are scarce the hawthorns are especially valuable and necessary, and large numbers of bears congregate in the thickets. They won’t stop coming if we build a campground in their territory, and when they raid camp coolers they’ll become “problem bears”.
The Forest Service says building this campground will “address visitor demand, protect resources, improve visitor experience and address concerns raised by adjacent landowners.” If the Forest Service wants to “protect resources” they should prohibit human intrusion in this critical habitat, not encourage it. The proposed campground is a minor part of the plan, but it tells us that the Forest Service is willing to discount the ecological values of a unique place and disregard the needs of the animals who live there to indulge recreationists. The disturbing underlying premise of the plan in general is that recreational access is paramount to every other management issue. So, we shouldn’t expect the river situation to improve. That will only happen when the Forest Service cares more about the health of the land than the demands of recreationists.
Bob and Inez Love live in Columbia Falls.