Federal Management Agencies Finalize Wild and Scenic Flathead River Strategy

Federal land managers on Friday finalized a long-term management plan for the Flathead River’s wild and scenic three forks, publishing key findings that signal the final step toward completing a comprehensive conservation-and-recreation strategy that’s been under review for nearly a decade.

The primary goal of the plan, dubbed the Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive River Management Plan (CRMP) for the Flathead Wild and Scenic River, is to establish a framework for protecting and enhancing the waterway’s values while setting benchmarks for specific management actions.

In addition to releasing a tranche of final documents — an updated environmental assessment, a draft decision notice, and a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) — natural resource managers from the Flathead National Forest and Glacier National Park published responses to nearly 1,100 public comments, which the agencies have collected from individuals and organizations since releasing the draft plan in February.

“We are pleased to finalize the three forks of the Flathead comprehensive river management plan, this has been a long time coming, and we are excited to begin a new management era on these world class Wild and Scenic Rivers,” Flathead National Forest Supervisor Anthony Botello said in a prepared statement. “I so appreciate the public’s long term and continued involvement in this planning effort. The public engagement has been robust and the comments we received were instrumental in informing and shaping the decision.”

The updated assessment, draft decision and supporting documents can be viewed on the plan’s project webpage or in the public folder.

The volume of input and high degree of involvement captures the public’s acute interest in a management strategy that hasn’t been formally updated in four decades. The Flathead National Forest released its draft plan for public consumption on Feb. 10, a half-century after Congress designated the Flathead River system for safeguards under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 — the nation’s strongest level of protection for waterways. On the Flathead system, the designation stymied plans for dam construction and prohibited certain types of development.

But recreational use has continued to spike, while other environmental stressors have come to bear on the Flathead River. As a requirement of the designation, natural resource managers must craft and periodically update a management plan to preserve the Flathead River system’s free-flowing condition, as well as its water quality and its outstandingly remarkable values (ORVs). The plan also updates the river system’s user-capacity analysis and monitoring program, with managers striving for a balance between spiking recreational uses and natural resource conservation.

The three forks of the Flathead span 219 miles and are currently managed under the 1986 Flathead River Management Plan, which is out of date. Since 2017, the agencies have been updating the plan while evaluating the significant increase of use (both on shore and by boat) and their obligation to protect the river system’s ORVs.

Planning officials and recreation specialists with the Flathead National Forest have encouraged community input and understanding as they puzzle out and complete the final documents released Friday.

Notably, the plan establishes an apparatus to gather more accurate monitoring and river-usage data by implementing a mandatory, unlimited and unrestricted permit system on all three forks. The permit system would be implemented in phases over the next two to three years, with recreation specialists emphasizing that it is not meant to be restrictive. Instead, it’s an opportunity to gather real-time data on river usage, as well as provide education and outreach by promoting Leave No Trace guidelines and river etiquette. However, if patterns of recreation use and pressure reach a threshold that imperils the system’s ORVs, a permit system could become restrictive.

Administrators said they hope to offer the permits for free, which wouldn’t be possible through Recreation.gov, the government’s centralized reservation website that charges users a $1 add-on fee.

Even after agency officials issue a final decision for the plan and environmental assessment, they’ll be at least one year removed from implementing the unlimited permit system, which would most likely launch in June 2027.

Unlike most other designated Wild and Scenic Rivers in which one waterway falls under a single management jurisdiction, the Flathead River has three forks (North Fork, Middle Fork and South Fork) with different jurisdictions, even though the Flathead National Forest oversees most of the access sites; however, the Flathead National Forest shares management jurisdiction with Glacier National Park on the north and middle forks, portions of which are in recommended wilderness areas, while the South Fork and Middle Fork travel through two designated wilderness areas — the Great Bear and Bob Marshall Wilderness.

To parse out the diverse spectrum of wild and scenic values that define the three forks, the CRMP divides them into management units, assigning each segment its own set of desired conditions and classifications (wild, scenic and recreational) that “reflect management intent for different types of visitor experiences.”

“We have three forks, we have 219 miles of river that’s all wild and scenic, and there are 10 distinct segments. And among those segments, we have all the classifications of wild, we have scenic, we have recreational reaches, all managed for different desired conditions,” Rob Davies, the Flathead National Forest’s district ranger overseeing the Hungry Horse and Glacier View districts, said at a public meeting in February. “The opportunities for recreation are really diverse. You have remote areas and wilderness, you have incredible fishing opportunities, you have floating, you have whitewater, you have camping. There’s a whole diversity. So our plan, what we strive to do, is preserve some of the solitude in places where you expect solitude. There will be some segments that we’re managing for an uncrowded, quiet experience, and there’s other reaches we’re managing for freedom of access — that ability just to make a decision on the fly and go float after work without any restrictions or without any hoops to go through.”

If it sounds as though many of the plans management directives have yet to be determined, Davies said it’s by design. The plan is crafted to be adaptive and allow managers to be nimble in their implementation strategies. But the draft plan also sets forth several clear management actions.

Those include restrictions of motorized camping and parking on gravel bars; requirements that solid human waste be contained within 200 feet of the river’s edge; requirements of fire pans or fire blankets for all campfires below the high-water mark; an expansion of the “no stoppage” order for boats in the Goat Lick area (extending from the eddy below Staircase Rapid to one mile downriver of the Walton Goat Lick Overlook); and caps to outfitter and service days on sections of the Middle and North Forks.

As with most management plans for popular recreational river corridors, user capacity has been of primary interest to members of the public, with some critics of the proposed plan accusing managers of setting user capacities and caps on commercial outfitters too high.

Other users emphasized that, without additional parking at the Glacier Rim, Blankenship Bridge, Paola Creek, and West Glacier accesses, enforcement of the parking restrictions would prove challenging.

“Overcrowding in the defined parking areas at these river access points is real and dangerous. That is why it has spilled onto the gravel bars and highways,” wrote Mike Burr, a river user who said he’s been floating the three forks since 1981.

The proposed CRMP establishes user capacities above current use levels across all river segments, with increases ranging from approximately 11% to nearly 300% above estimated existing use. The most substantial increases occur in the Middle Fork, where proposed capacities reach nearly three times current estimated use in some segments. Some river users feel this approach ignores the role that existing recreation levels play in degrading ORVs, including water quality and fisheries habitat, even as the EA documents impacts at recreation sites.

Arlene Montgomery, of Friends of the Wild Swan, pointed to the steep decline of westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout populations in the South Fork, and to state and federal reports estimating angling mortality and incidental bycatch of the threatened species in the North and Middle forks, as evidence to support the need for a cumulative impacts analysis of recreational floating on Flathead River fisheries.

“While these loss figures are estimates, it is a staggering amount of angling mortality for these river systems and the dwindling bull trout population,” Montgomery wrote. “It is imperative that a thorough cumulative impacts analysis be conducted before arbitrarily increasing human users that will stress the fishery even further.”

Denny Gignoux, the owner of Glacier Guides and Montana Raft, a commercial outfitting company that offers rafting and fishing trips on the river system, said his guides serve as de facto ambassadors of the river corridor, promoting ethical angling and responsible stewardship.

“Professional guides educate thousands of visitors each season about Leave No Trace practices, sanitation systems, wildlife awareness, and respectful river etiquette,” Gignoux wrote. “Guided trips also provide safe and responsible public access to Wild and Scenic rivers for visitors who may not otherwise have the skills or equipment needed to experience these nationally significant landscapes.”

The CRMP is subject to a 45-day objection process, during which people who have already provided public comment may submit additional feedback.

Electronic objections are preferred and must be submitted to the objection reviewing officer through the online comment page. Written objections may be submitted via regular mail or hand delivery to: Objections Reviewing Officer, Flathead National Forest, Attn: CRMP Project, 650 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell, MT 59901. Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 4:30pm, excluding Federal holidays, for hand delivery.

Additional information can be obtained from Rob Davies, District Ranger, at 406-387-3801 or by email at [email protected].  

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