Now that 2022 is within the books, it’s time to mirror on the previous 12 months and ponder our hopes and desires for 2023. As somebody whose job it’s to guard and preserve Montana’s bounty of spectacular rivers, I’ll say that final 12 months was a momentous one because of the 500-year flood occasions on the Yellowstone River and a number of other of its tributaries alongside the Absaroka-Beartooth entrance.
If these historic floods taught us something, it’s that we have to give rivers ample room to roam inside their floodplains and steer improvement away from high-hazard areas to attenuate the lack of life and property. Kudos to Yellowstone Nationwide Park Superintendent Cam Sholly for heeding this lesson and deciding to not instantly rebuild the flood-ravaged street alongside the Gardiner River between Gardiner and Mammoth.
As for the approaching 12 months, listed here are a few of my prime needs for Montana’s rivers:
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• Montana’s whole congressional delegation will get behind Senator Jon Tester’s Montana Headwaters Legacy Act and Congress passes it, ceaselessly defending 20 rivers and 385 river miles within the higher Missouri and Yellowstone river programs. Among the many treasured waters that might achieve safety when this visionary laws passes are parts of the Boulder, Gallatin, Madison, Smith, and Yellowstone rivers.
• Senator Steve Daines releases his maintain on the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Act and Congress passes this domestically crafted laws that’s been over a decade within the making. Amongst different issues, this standard invoice would defend the headwaters of the Blackfoot River by including 80,000 acres to the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Mission Mountains wilderness areas.
• The Montana Supreme Courtroom upholds a state district court docket ruling that discovered the Montana Division of Environmental High quality (DEQ) wrongly issued a allow for the Black Butte Copper Mine within the headwaters of the Smith River. The mine is situated on Sheep Creek, the Smith River’s most necessary rainbow trout spawning tributary.
• The Montana DEQ determines that the center phase of the Gallatin River from the Yellowstone Nationwide Park boundary all the way down to Spanish Creek is impaired by algal blooms from nutrient air pollution in Huge Sky. As soon as this occurs, the state should develop a cleanup plan to revive the river again to well being.
• The U.S. and Canadian governments agree that selenium contamination from mountaintop removing coal mining within the Elk River drainage in southern British Columbia is harming aquatic life on our aspect of the border in Lake Koocanusa and the Kootenai River, and the difficulty is lastly referred to the Worldwide Joint Fee, which was created to deal with such disputes.
• The U.S. Environmental Safety Company (EPA) orders the homeowners of the previous Smurfit-Stone property alongside the Clark Fork River between Missoula and Frenchtown to scrub up this poisonous website so it not poses an acute risk to fish, wildlife, and other people throughout main flood occasions.
• Governor Greg Gianforte and the Republican-controlled Montana Legislature reject proposed payments by Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Libby) and others that take direct goal at Montanans’ constitutional proper to a clear and healthful surroundings.
Sadly, none of those needs are prone to come true if Montanans sit on the sidelines and look forward to our elected leaders and company officers to do the fitting factor. You’ll be able to wager that out-of-state particular pursuits like Sandfire Sources, Teck Coal and Worldwide Paper Firm will spend tens of tens of millions of {dollars} lobbying to take care of the established order to allow them to rake in big earnings and stick Montanans with their cleanup prices. That’s why I urge each Montanan who cherishes our rivers to affix American Rivers and their native watershed group to be taught how one can make a distinction within the new 12 months.
Scott Bosse is the Northern Rockies Director for American Rivers primarily based in Bozeman. He has fished, paddled, and hiked alongside Montana’s rivers for over three a long time.
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