Donovan New Chair, Edits to Draft Continue

SWAN VALLEY - The Swan Valley Regional Planning Committee (SVRPC) meeting held May 26 was led by the new chair Ken Donovan. Edits to the draft regional plan continued focused on recommendations from the Swan Valley school board.

The SVRPC made edits to the Draft Plan using comments from School District No. 33 School Board.

The school board pointed out in its comments that the word ecosystem was not used correctly in the 1.0 Element named Natural Resources and Environment. According to the comments, ecosystem is too broad a term to use when naming the following areas:

• Valley Bottom

• Moderate warm Ponderosa pine

• Cold, steep, forested

• Cold, steep, non-forested

• Cool, moist

SVRPC members voted to accept Dave Johnson’s suggestion to replace the word ecosystem with forest communities. The term ecosystem will be replaced where it is found in the Natural Resources and Environment Element with the term forest communities.

The committee accepted Johnson’s rewording of the sentence found in the Valley Bottom section to include that large and small wildlife travel in the Swan River, its tributaries and the riparian zones.

The Table 1.2 entitled Wildlife Use of Habitat Type by Species in the Natural Resources and Environment Element was criticized by the school board comment because it doesn’t give the reader the idea that habitat type is always changing and the wildlife mentioned in the chart may or may not be present. It was suggested that the word potential be added to the title of the chart.

The committee agreed and voted to include ‘potential’ to the chart and to add a sentence to further clarify the chart. The sentence reads: Wildlife use of a specific habitat type is heavily influenced by the on-the-ground seral stages that may or may not be present and are not shown on the Habitat Type map.

Changes to the draft plan can be viewed online after that meeting minutes are approved at the following meeting: http://missoulacounty.us/government/community-development/community-planning-services/projects/active-projects/swan-valley-plan-update

Donovan was appointed as the new chair by the Swan Valley Community Council (SVCC) which oversees the SVRPC. Donovan replaces Cilla Moseley who resigned from the position at the beginning of the month.

The next SVRPC meeting will be June 8 at 7 p.m. in the Swan Valley Community Hall.