Page 5 - Flathead Beacon // 3.19.14

FLATHEADBEACON.COM
MARCH 19, 2014 | 5

NEWS

WORDS
••••
of the Week

Crown Jewell
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell pledges support
AN INDEX OF
RECENT of North Fork Bill and other conservation
NEWSMAKERS
measures in Crown of the Continent

CRIMEA
By TRISTAN SCOTT of the Beacon
Russian President Vladimir
Putin signed a formal agreement HUNGRY HORSE — No stone of pres-
recognizing the Crimean region ervation was left unturned by advocates
of Ukraine as an independent of landscape resource protection in the
state, a move that could lay the
groundwork for annexation.
Crown of the Continent Saturday during
a meeting with Secretary of the Interior
Sally Jewell and U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and
John Walsh at the Hungry Horse Ranger
FLIGHT 370
Station.
There is still no sign of
Tribal members, environmental
the Malaysian light that groups, Glacier National Park brass, civic
disappeared on March 8 with leaders and federal oicials attended the
239 people on board, and
gathering, which was organized to update
investigators say the plane was stakeholders on the progress of the widely
deliberately diverted during its supported North Fork Watershed Protec-
overnight light and lew of- tion Act, and for attendees to voice con-
course for hours.
cerns about the need for additional federal
measures to protect the landscape in the
transboundary Flathead Valley.
BRACKETOLOGY
The nature of those concerns ran the
Billionaire Warren Bufett gamut, with conservation advocates de- Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell addresses conservationists and land managers on March 15 during a
has ofered a cool $1 billion nouncing the prospect of oil and gas or visit to Hungry Horse with U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and John Walsh.
to anyone who ills out a mining leases in the North Fork Flathead JUSTIN FRANZ | FLATHEAD BEACON
perfect March Madness NCAA River, and Glacier Park Superintendent the bill’s future.
cels along the north and middle forks of
tournament bracket.
Jef Mow sounding alarms at the quanti- However, Jewell emphasized the im-
the Flathead River, placing them of lim-
ty of oil being freighted along the Middle portance of a lands protection bill like its to hard-rock mining, mountaintop-re-
Fork of the Flathead and the southern the North Fork measure and said she may moval coal mining, and oil and gas devel-

WOLVES
boundary of Glacier National Park. Others seek administrative relief to temporarily opment.
still spoke about the threat of coal mining implement the bill as it languishes in Con- Although the Republican-led U.S.
Hunters and trappers in and selenium pollution on the Elk River in gress, while Tester and Walsh pledged to House of Representatives recently passed
Montana killed 230 wolves in British Columbia, an upstream tributary continue to work toward permanent pas- a version of the measure at the behest of
the recently concluded season, of the Kootenai River, and the importance sage of the bill.
Rep. Steve Daines, R- Mont., three con-
which is only ive more than the of passing the Rocky Mountain Front “As human beings we haven’t always servative holdouts in the Senate – Sen. Pat
previous season, despite the Heritage Act. That bill would designate appreciated these great landscapes. I Toomey, R-Penn.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas;
lifting of quotas across most 208,000 acres as a conservation manage- know there have been decisions made by
of the state and increased bag and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. – have sty-
limits for individual hunters.
ment area that allows motorized access, some of my predecessors to put leases in mied passage of the bill by refusing to vote
biking and other current uses, add another areas right on the edge of a national park, for it.
67,000 acres to the Bob Marshall Wilder- right on the edge of a wilderness area Walsh invited those senators to visit
WILDFIRES
ness Complex, and support noxious weed and right in areas that are too special to Northwest Montana and see the cherished
prevention programs for agricultural and be developed,” Jewell said. “You have all landscape for themselves, but the Tea Par-
There’s a bipartisan efort
public lands across the Front.
worked very hard to make people under- ty conservatives have stipulated that the
in Congress to change how Democrats Tester and Walsh have stand why these places are too special to only way they’ll support additional feder-
the country pays for ighting
catastrophic wildires, by overwhelmingly supported the North be developed. This is a very important al land protection is if an equal amount of
tapping into natural disaster Fork Watershed Protection Act, a version place to protect into perpetuity.”
land is removed from federal protection.
funds instead of money intended of which was irst introduced by former If passed, the public lands bill would “There is nothing more frustrating
for ire prevention.
Sen. Max Baucus, whose retirement to be- furnish permanent protections on
come ambassador to China cast doubt on
430,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service par-
See Jewell PAGE 24