Greater Yellowstone Environmental News Feed

Plan urged to save national parks from global warming effects

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 11:24:21 -0600

The federal government must take decisive action to avoid "a potentially catastrophic loss of animal and plant life" in national parks, according to a new report that details the effects of global warming on the nation's most treasured public lands.

The 53-page report from the National Parks Conservation Assn., a Washington-based advocacy group, details concerns related to climate change in the parks, including the bleaching of coral reefs in Florida and the disappearance of high-altitude ponds that nurture yellow-legged frogs in California.

The group called on the National Park Service to come up with a detailed plan and funding to adapt to temperature-related ecosystem changes.

"Right now, no national plan exists to manage wildlife throughout their habitat, which often is a patchwork of lands managed by multiple federal agencies, states, tribes, municipalities and private landholders," wrote Thomas C. Kiernan, president of the conservation group.

A major climate bill passed by the House in June would allocate more than $500 million a year to natural resources adaptation under a proposed carbon-trading program. The Senate is drafting a companion bill, but the outcome of the legislation remains uncertain.

The survey by the conservation group reinforces recent testimony by President Obama's nominee for park service director, Jon Jarvis. "Climate change challenges the very foundation of the national park system and our ability to leave America's natural and cultural heritage unimpaired for future generations," Jarvis told a House subcommittee.

He suggested that "national park units can serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, a place where we can monitor and document ecosystem change without many of the stressors that are found on other public lands."

The report recommends adaptation strategies including the creation of wildlife corridors stretching from one park to another so that species can move unencumbered into cooler areas. It also recommends more effective limits on environmental hazards.

...

Idaho meets deadline for bighorn plans - mostly

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 11:25:39 -0600

Most sheep ranchers who work near wild bighorn habitat have agreed to take extra steps to keep domestic sheep away from wild bighorns.

But ranchers in the two areas where the issue has flared up in court, Hells Canyon northwest of Weiser and along the Salmon River east of Riggins, are still negotiating with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Scientists say domestic sheep carry bacteria that sometimes are deadly to bighorns, but environmentalists, government agencies and some ranchers and industry groups can't agree on the best ways to keep the two from intermingling.

A lawsuit by bighorn advocates forced officials at the Payette National Forest to start a process to decide whether to keep allowing ranchers to graze their sheep in bighorn habitat.

That sparked a response from the Idaho Legislature, which passed a law that says a wild sheep that had come too close to a domestic herd had to be either relocated or killed. It also required Fish and Game Director Cal Groen to certify these separation plans by Aug. 5.

He has approved 11 plans so far and lawmakers hope Groen's certification will be taken into account by the Payette forest officials.

Groen said the process has improved communication with ranchers, and he said the ideas - such as using extra herders, guard dogs and other "best management practices" - will help keep bighorns away from sheep.

"When this legislation passed I was very nervous," Groen said. "But we went through this process and I'm convinced we will see some benefits for bighorn sheep."

Lawmakers pushed the bill in an effort to help, among others, Ron Shirts of Weiser and Mick Carlson of Riggins, sheep ranchers who have been forced by court order to remove their sheep from public lands in habitat occupied by bighorn sheep.

Carlson was disappointed Fish and Game rejected ideas he had put forward to keep bighorns away from his sheep in the Salmon River canyon, said his attorney William Myers, who declined to go into specifics.

"I'm now working with Mick to put those ideas in writing to send to Fish and Game for another look," Myers said.

Frank Shirts, who grazes sheep on public land next to his brother's grazing allotment in Hells Canyon, said Fish and Game's proposals for him and his brother aren't reasonable - or necessary.

"My men have never seen a bighorn near our sheep," Shirts said.

Fish and Game had proposed that Shirts have eight herders ...

Federal appeals court reinstates Clinton-era ban on road building in national forests

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 10:20:53 -0600

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court Wednesday blocked road construction in more than 50 million acres of pristine national forests.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstates a 2001 rule put in place by President Bill Clinton just before he left office that prohibited commercial logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of national forest in 38 states and Puerto Rico. A subsequent Bush administration rule had cleared the way for more commercial activity there.

The latest ruling, issued in San Francisco, sides with several Western states and environmental groups that sued the Forest Service after it reversed the so-called "Roadless Rule" in 2005.

The Obama administration has ordered a one-year moratorium on most road-building in national forests. A May 28 directive by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack gives him sole decision-making authority over all proposed forest management or road construction projects in designated roadless areas in all states except Idaho.

Idaho was one of two states that developed its own roadless rule under the 2005 Bush policy, which gave states more control over whether and how to block road-building in remote forests.

Environmental advocates hailed the 9th Circuit ruling, which they said was needed even though Bush is no longer in office.

"This is a huge step. It puts the roadless rule back in place," said Kristen Boyles, a lawyer for the environmental group Earthjustice, which represented a coalition of environmental groups in the case.

Boyles, who has fought for nearly eight years to uphold the 2001 roadless rule, said the 9th Circuit ruling "is what we need to be able to have the protection on the ground for the last wild places and for hikers and campers."

A spokeswoman for Vilsack could not be immediately be reached for comment. But the spokeswoman, Chris Mather, has said Vilsack could still approve roads in remote forests if necessary, for example, to protect public safety or forest health.

Last month, Vilsack approved a timber sale in a roadless area of Alaska's Tongass National Forest. The sale allows Pacific Log and Lumber to clear-cut about 380 acres in the Tongass, the largest federal forest. About 2 miles of roads will be constructed to allow the logging....

Judge approves Smoky Canyon Mine expansion

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 10:18:19 -0600

BOISE, Idaho � An environmental group promises to appeal a federal ruling that on Tuesday approved the expansion of a phosphate mine into a roadless area near Yellowstone National Park.

In his decision, U.S. District Judge Mikel Williams said the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management followed the necessary steps when considering the J.R. Simplot Company's request to expand its Smoky Canyon Mine.

"We already know we're going to appeal," said Marv Hoyt, executive director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, which sued to stop the expansion. "We basically believe the judge erred in virtually every one of the claims we brought forward."

The J.R. Simplot Co. has mined phosphate rock from leased land in the Caribou National Forest since 1983, supplying about 1.5 million tons of phosphate ore a year to the company's Don fertilizer plant in Pocatello. But the Smoky Canyon Mine's phosphate reserves were expected to be completely played out by the summer of 2010, and last June the Bush administration approved a plan to allow the mine to expand into roadless areas of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.

The company said the expansion into land about 100 miles south of Yellowstone National Park would provide enough phosphate to keep the Don plant running for another 15 years.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition sued, contending the expansion would further harm a region already polluted with selenium from past phosphate mining. Pollution from other mines in the 1990s resulted in the deaths of horses and hundreds of sheep grazing in areas tainted by selenium.

In its lawsuit, the coalition said the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management violated several federal rules, including the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Act.

Several entities intervened in the case to throw their support behind the mine, including the cities of Pocatello and Chubbuck, Idaho and Afton, Wyo., counties on both sides of the state line, United Steel Workers Local 632 and the Idaho Farm Bureau. All said they would be hurt by disruptions to Simplot's phosphate supply.

In his ruling, Williams wrote that the case had been one of the more difficult issues for the court to decide and said that the Greater Yellowstone Coalition made some very good arguments on how the ground and surface water could be affected.

But ultimately, Williams said, the environmental group was...

Stockgrowers sue over Horse Butte bison

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 10:57:03 -0600

A lawsuit seeking to force the state of Montana to have bison cleared off Horse Butte Peninsula by the middle of May will be heard by Judge John Brown beginning today.

The suit is brought by the Montana Stockgrowers Association, along with two cattle ranchers who use grazing allotments near the peninsula east of West Yellowstone.

Errol Rice, executive vice president of the Stockgrowers, said the state Department of Livestock has been treating a May 15 deadline for hazing bison back into Yellowstone National Park as a target rather than an �absolute.� The May 15 date is set in the Interagency Bison Management Plan, an agreement between state and federal agencies setting protocols to prevent interaction between bison and livestock.

Livestock producers are also taking issue with a change made to the plan last December that allows an unlimited number of bison untested for brucellosis to roam on the peninsula during the winter. Before the change, the IBMP called for all bison migrating out of the park to either be tested for brucellosis, hazed back into the park or slaughtered. Brucellosis is a disease that causes animals to miscarry, and livestock producers fear that bison could transmit the disease to domestic herds.

Horse Butte has been a lightning rod for controversy in recent years. Since 2007, no cattle have been run in the area, leading many bison advocates to protest the huge animals being hazed off the land.

* In response to those concerns, the state has implemented policies more lenient toward bison on the peninsula, policies the Stockgrowers are suing over.

�The state of Montana is not being as dedicated to the measures of the plan as the livestock producers would like to see the state of Montana be dedicated,� Rice said.

But Tim Preso, staff attorney for Earthjustice representing several conservation groups and land owners on Horse Butte, said the plan, adopted in 2000, is outdated.

�They�re trying to keep the Department of Livestock locked into this practice that was created to protect cattle on Horse Butte. There are no cattle to protect on Horse Butte,� he said.

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Snowmobiles and sanity

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:21:13 -0600

A bit of sanity finally has been injected back into the longtime saga of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Hopefully, it will restore the wintertime peace at one of America's most special places.

The only noise more grating than hundreds of snowmobiles whizzing through Yellowstone has been the decade-long bickering over the issue.

The Obama administration now says it wants to allow up to 318 snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone for the next two winters. It effectively restores a plan that Bush officials scrapped late last year, when they instead reinstated a 720-per-day rule.

Before President George W. Bush took office, snowmobiles were on their way out of the park permanently.

Dismissing years of scientific study � sound familiar? � Bush reversed the impending ban, forcing the issue into the courts.

Yellowstone scientists earlier concluded that too many snow machines create "major adverse impacts" in the park. The high-polluting machines undermine the wildlife, air quality and, of course, tranquility during winter in Yellowstone.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of miles of snowmobile routes just outside the park. During summer months, all-terrain vehicles aren't even allowed at Yellowstone.

The National Park Service plans on using the next two years to come up with a long-term solution, and will allow for public comment.

We understand that recent improvements in snowmobiles used in the park have reduced the amount of pollution the machines emit and the noise they make. That's a good step forward.

However, the totality of factors makes it clear they have no place in Yellowstone, or at least should be severely limited....

Boaters hail wild Snake

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:22:47 -0600

More than 100 supporters of the Snake River Fund floated the river Friday and celebrated its four-month-old status as a congressionally protected wild and scenic waterway.

The fete culminated at a barbecue dinner on the banks of the river south of Wilson attended by veteran oarsmen and women and paddlers of all stripes.

A U.S. Forest Service proposal in 1998 to charge recreationists with a parking fee launched the Snake River Fund, one of the nonprofits that was key to the campaign.

Board member emeritus Aaron Pruzan recalled how his organization was born when an anonymous donor stepped in and bought the first $50,000 worth of parking permits, freeing boaters from bureaucracy. The donor challenged the community to take the next fundraising step.

�Right away, everybody got it,� Pruzan said of the need to mobilize for the good of the waterway and those who use it.

Within years, the Snake River Fund was among a handful of conservation groups strategizing how to preserve the Snake and guarantee it not be degraded by dams, pollution or development that could threaten its special characteristics.

Wyoming had only 20 miles of wild and scenic rivers when the latest effort began about five years ago. Supporters, including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, proposed the first-ever bill to protect an entire headwaters and its tributaries.

With Sen. Craig Thomas as its champion � and later Thomas� successor, Sen. John Barrasso � the bill followed a rocky road to its approval this year. Today, protection for scenic, recreational or wild values covers 387 miles of rivers and creeks in the region, including portions of Bailey, Blackrock, Crystal, Granite, Pacific, Shoal, Willow and Wolf creeks, the Buffalo Fork of the Snake, plus the Gros Ventre, Hoback, Lewis and Snake rivers.

�People said we were crazy,� said Scott Bosse, who worked with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition on the project. �Maybe it takes a lot of crazy dirtbags to create a new reality.�

�I was inspired to protect a river that was still intact,� Bosse said. �There�s few places on Earth like the Snake watershed. It was something that was too special to risk.�

Ground-breaking in the campaign was acknowledgement of the river�s economic value to anglers, outfitters, whitewater companies and others in the tourist industry.

�It�s a recognition it�s really important in the economy of the valley,� o...

Park experiments with live Web feeds from Geyser Hill

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:36:51 -0600

Live from Yellowstone National Park it's � Ranger George?

Leaping into the multimedia wonders of webcasts, the nation's oldest national park is offering live educational broadcasts for a limited time this summer.

"Last year we did a camera over a crowd during a program that was already going, and that didn't work very well," said Tom Cawley, audio-visual specialist for the park. "So we decided we needed to do a program directly for the public. This is the first time this has been done anywhere in the Park Service."

The broadcasts are made each Tuesday and Thursday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. from Geyser Hill, next to Old Faithful. The first test broadcast was made Monday, followed by the first full-fledged broadcast Tuesday. The morning broadcast covers the history of the area and historic structures - those still present as well as those now gone. The talk is illustrated with historic photos.

In the afternoon, Ranger George Heinz talks about Yellowstone's amazing array of hydrothermal features, pulling out a graphic representation of Old Faithful's innards as well as photos. Viewers who tuned in Thursday learned about mud pots, heat-loving bacteria, the temperature at which water boils in the geyser basin (199 degrees) and how Old Faithful's underground plumbing works.

"But first, we're going to turn around and watch the eruption of Old Faithful geyser," Heinz said in Thursday afternoon's broadcast.

Heinz mixes humor, history and science in his talk, keeping up a constant patter despite the distractions of visitors walking past on the basin's boardwalk.

"This is an amazing place," he said at the close of the afternoon broadcast, and then he invited viewers to come see for themselves - if not at Yellowstone, then at another national park. "You need to fall in love with one of these special places."

Cawley said the biggest logistical problem in airing the broadcasts has been getting the video and audio signal from Geyser Hill back to the Old Faithful Visitor Center, where the webcam feed is located.

Despite the glitch, he said, the project is going great, even though Cawley and Heinz are still working out the best ways to choreograph the talks.

"It's a completely different thing," Cawley said. "It's kind of exciting."

The Thursday morning broadcast included the eruption of Old Faithful and Plume geysers.

Cawley is hopeful that as word gets out, thousands will tune in to watch and ...

Whitebark pine cone crop looking good

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:16:41 -0600

Whitebark pine seeds could be abundant this fall, giving some wildlife managers hope that the high-protein food source will help keep grizzly bears out of lower elevations where they�re more likely to get into trouble.

Bear and tree biologists report good cone production in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and elsewhere around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

That might help prevent a repeat of last fall, when researchers reported 48 grizzly deaths, 37 of which could be attributed to human causes. Twenty of the bears were killed by hunters. Officials say the actual number of deaths is likely higher.

The number of bears that are killed is especially important this year because a review that could land the bear back on the endangered species list would be triggered if a certain threshold is met.

Last year was considered a poor year for whitebark pine cones.

So researchers hope a good whitebark pine cone crop will keep grizzlies from seeking out nutrients from hunter-killed carcasses or in developed areas, resulting in fewer problems this year.

However, some say diseases such as blister rust and insects such as the mountain pine beetle have killed so many whitebark pines in the region that even a great cone crop won�t help bears avoid conflicts.

�The trees that are remaining alive have a lot of healthy, big cones,� said Grand Teton National Park ecologist Nancy Bockino.

�They�re dark purple, and they are absolutely beautiful,� she said. �Some of the branches have eight cones crammed on there. This is definitely the biggest year that I�ve seen in a while. It seems like everyone is saying that they have cones.�

Bockino said the cones take two years to develop.

�Last year they were little tiny, like cherry tomatoes,� she said. �Now, they are growing so quickly.�

Once the seeds develop, red squirrels will shear the cones from the branches and stash the seeds away for the winter. Grizzly bears typically raid the squirrel stashes for the seeds.

Chuck Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said his field crews are beginning to get counts of whitebark pine stands.

�What they�re telling me is that when they�re hiking in ... it appears to be a really good whitebark pine [cone] crop this year,� he said.

Researchers typically see lower rates of conflict between bears and humans and fewer bear deaths in good cone production years.

�W...

Pollution concern arises

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:53:50 -0600

Air-quality studies show an alarming rise in ammonium in several national parks, including Yellowstone, which could change the dynamics of the ecosystem.

Tester plan tackles forest, logging issues

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:12:31 -0600

By John S. Adams

HELENA � Flanked by representatives from the state's timber industry, wilderness groups, backcountry enthusiasts and motorized off-road-vehicle groups, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., on Friday unveiled a broad piece of legislation aimed at saving timber jobs and increasing wilderness acreage in the state.

The measure, dubbed the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009, designates more than 660,000 acres of new wilderness in Montana, while mandating the logging of 100,000 acres on public forests over a 10-year period.

Proponents of the 84-page bill hailed the measure as the product of years of collaboration between often disparate groups of stakeholders. They say the bill will save jobs in timber communities while permanently protecting wilderness and increasing recreational opportunities.

However, not all conservationists are enthusiastic about the plan. Some wilderness advocates say the bill gives up too much public land for timber harvesting, road building and off-road vehicle use in exchange for too little wilderness designation.

The measure also is being attacked from the other side. The Montana Multiple Use Association blasted it as the product of closed-door negotiations by special-interest groups, adding it ignores mining and other interests.

However, Tester said the measure is critical to saving Montana's wood-products industry while reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

"I want to state as clearly and as plainly as I can: Montana forest communities are in crisis," Tester told the crowd gathered at RY Timber in Townsend, where the bill was unveiled. "Our forest crisis demands action, and it demands action right now."

Tester said RY Timber recently has been able to operate at only about 60 percent capacity.

"At the same time, unprecedented outbreaks of (mountain pine) beetles are turning entire hillsides red with dead and dying trees � trees that can either burn up or be put to another use," Tester said.

He said his bill will protect access for recreation, protect clean water and shield some of the state's best hunting and fishing habitat for generations to come....

Study of falling elk population looks at food

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:49:42 -0600

Too many missed meals may be the larger cause of the decline of elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem - not wolf predation or the elk's fear of being eaten by wolves, according to a newly published study.

"What seems to be happening is all these subtle behavioral responses seem to be adding up over winter," said Scott Creel, an ecology professor at Montana State University and the lead author of a study that appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "I was initially a little surprised. When I began looking at elk-wolf interactions, I thought predation would be the main cause."

The study builds on similar theories Creel and his associates have written about over the course of the seven-year study.

Blame to go around

Over the years, various explanations have been given for the elk population decline in the Greater Yellowstone area - extended drought that diminished forage, predation by wolves, too high a hunter harvest late in the winter and predation on elk calves by bears.

Wolf predation seemed the most likely cause, since the Northern Yellowstone elk herd stood at 17,000 to 19,000 before the wolves' reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. This year, 7,109 elk were counted, an increase from the previous two years when 6,279 and 6,738 elk were counted.

The cow-to-calf ratio in the Northern Range this year was 22 calves per 100 cows, double what it was the year before. Wildlife managers would like to see 20 to 30 calves per 100 cows.

Scat evidence

Although some calves are being lost to predators, relatively few were being killed by wolves in their first six months of life, according to Creel's radio-collar studies.

That pointed to a low birthrate as the cause.

One theory to explain the reduced number of calves was that stress from fear of predation was causing the cow elk's cortisol levels to increase to the point that they produced less progesterone, a hormone critical to carrying a pregnancy to term.

But high cortisol levels weren't detected in the 1,200 fecal and urine samples taken from elk in the Paradise Valley, Wall Creek Wildlife Management Area and the Gallatin Range over four winters. Elk in the Elkhorn Mountains, where wolves aren't present, were included in the study for comparison.

The elk living with wolves did, however, have lower progesterone levels compared with those not living with elk.

Low-fat pregnanc...

Forest Service, GYC voice concern about proposed Quake Lake power plant

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:22:35 -0600

Environmental groups and the U.S. Forest Service are poised to act as regulators seek public comment on a hydroelectric plant proposed for Quake Lake on the Madison River.

Bozeman-based company Hydrodynamics Inc. aims to build a 50-foot-tall intake structure in Quake Lake and a 3,200 foot enclosed pipe between U.S. Highway 287 and the Madison River to divert water for electricity production, according to an application filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. No new dam would be constructed.

The plan is in the early stages, said project manager Ben Singer. If a preliminary permit is approved after the public comment period closes in early September, Hydrodynamics will essentially have staked their claim to the project.

If a preliminary permit is granted this fall, Hydrodynamics will go forward with studies, surveys and tests before it is allowed to apply for a license to begin work within the next three years, Singer said.

�For now, all we have is a very broad-stroke proposal,� Singer said.

* Throughout the process there will be time for additional public comment.

�There would be a complete environmental review,� said FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller.

But as Hydrodynamics makes its way through red tape, local conservationists are already watching.

�Obviously, GYC is concerned about potential impacts on the Madison River and its surrounding environment,� said Scott Christensen, private lands stewardship director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.

The hydroelectric facility could damage the Madison River ecosystem, a staple of the state�s tourism industry, Christensen said.

�Anytime you take water out of a river, that has impact on trout,� he said. �The Madison River is known nationally and internationally. It is the most heavily fished river in the state if Montana.�

The project would be located on parts of the Gallatin National Forest and private lands, and the U.S. Forest Service has filed a motion to intervene. While the motion does not object to granting a permit, it opens the door to future legal arguments if the forest service deems them necessary.

�It�s somewhat of a political move, just to make sure we have standing,� said Rob Davies, natural resource specialist from the Hebgen Ranger District.

Surrounding banks and mountainsides remain unstable after the 7.3 earthquake that struck the area nearly 50 years ago, causing the ...

Tester to unveil forest bill

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:55:03 -0600

Montana Sen. Jon Tester plans to unveil a draft of his new forest land management bill this Friday in Townsend.

The word �wilderness� did not appear in Tuesday's announcement of what many consider the first federal wilderness legislation to come out of the Montana congressional delegation since 1988.

In a news release, Tester described the bill as �designed to create jobs in Montana's forests.�

�This bill is a product of Montanans working together on a good compromise that will put folks back to work in the woods,� he said. �It will also protect our clean water and fishing and hunting habitat, while making sure our forests are an important part of Montana's heritage for our kids and grandkids.�

According to Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy, the bill combines three regional compromises that include wilderness acreage, logging access, forest thinning and stewardship, and recreation opportunities. They are the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership in southwest Montana, the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project around the Bob Marshall/Scapegoat Wilderness, and the Three Rivers Challenge in the Yaak of northwestern Montana.

The three projects combined would designate more than 400,000 acres of federal wilderness. They would also affect land management on 1.2 million acres in those three areas.

Tester plans to unveil the bill at RY Timber Co. in Townsend at 1 p.m. Friday.

�He asked if he could come to Townsend and make his announcement, and we welcomed him,� said RY Timber resource manager Ed Regan. �We're a partner in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, and have been at it from Day One.�

The partnerships gathered conservation groups, timber companies, recreation advocates and local government leaders to negotiate outcomes all could support.

�Our suggestions have always been to get more timber harvested in areas of the forest that needed it,� Regan said. �And we worked with conservation people to get them some wilderness. I think anybody that's a forest user in this thing is going to get about 90 percent of what they want.�

Not everyone agrees with that claim. The project has drawn fire from timber, recreation and conservation groups. Alliance for the Wild Rockies director Michael Garrity objected to early drafts that appeared to mandate logging levels that overruled Endangered Species Act protections for grizzly bears. Keith Olson of the Montana Logging Association was concerned the legislation...

Community: Send comp plan back to staff

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:56:41 -0600

The latest round of public comments on the draft of the Jackson/Teton County Comprehensive Plan reveal a further hardening of opposition to the plan.

The comments, which include those submitted from June 13 to July 5, includes several petitions opposed to the draft as well as an outpouring of support for county Planning Commissioners Tony Wall and Forrest McCarthy, who fought to have the draft rewritten.

One petition, organized by a network of neighborhood groups, contains more than 1,000 signatures in support of making wildlife and open spaces the plan's top priority in every district.

In its current form, the plan lists the stewardship of wildlife and natural resources as the plan's No.1 theme in general but lists that as a top priority in only eight of the 25 districts.

The petition states, "wildlife and open spaces, values this community has cherished for decades, will be reinstated as the community's top priority and become the organizing theme of the entire plan."

The petition was distributed to a smattering of local businesses several weeks before the June 11 meeting of town and county planning commissioners.

Another petition, which was signed by 45 individuals, was submitted to town and county planners in opposition of the amount of growth proposed for the South Park area.

The petition urges planners to "reduce the number of proposed future units from 1,500 units in South Park back to the 370 units that are already allowed under present zoning." It also requests that "any new development in South Park should only occur after infill has been exhausted in the town of Jackson."

The Aspens Homeowners Association also submitted a petition in opposition to the amount of growth proposed for the Aspens area. The petition signed by the president, vice president, secretary and two members of the association; urges the county commissioners in their entirety to vote against it.

In addition, many residents commended Wall and McCarthy for making a recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners send the plan back to staff to be revised in accordance with public opinion.

"This is a short note to first of all thank the planning commissioners for their courageous decision to recommend that the current draft of the comprehensive plan be sent back to the planners for major revisions," Jim and Linda Goralski said in online comments. "As we've previously commented at meetings and in letters, ...