As snow finally blankets the valley, the quiet and cold gives us time to reflect on the last year. 2016 has been an incredibly busy year for The Nature Conservancy in Montana, including for those of us who work on the Clearwater-Blackfoot Project.
In almost two years since acquiring the 117,152 acres that comprise the Clearwater-Blackfoot Project, the Conservancy has been working hard to address urgent conservation needs and to understand the landscape as a whole. Projects of this scale always have an element of uncertainty but our work with the Seeley Lake and other surrounding communities and partners reassures us that a sustainable future is in sight.
Here, we want to highlight some of 2016’s successes and invite everyone to get involved. None of this work would be possible without the support of the many partner organizations and community members who have worked with us to care for these lands. In addition to partners like the Blackfoot Challenge, Montana Trout Unlimited and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, we wish to particularly thank our many contractors from the past year. Their hard work makes stewardship possible:
• Westslope Excavation LLC
• O’Brien Excavation
• Pitman Machining LLC
• Native Solution Restoration LLC
• InRoads Consulting LLC
• Ecosystem Research Group LLC
• Woodland Restoration Inc
• Kylie Paul Environmental Consulting
• Brushbull Forestry Inc
• Jed Dewey
• Montana Conservation Corps
• Missoula Youth in Restoration
• Timber Trail and Spurs Contractors LLC
2016 Highlights
• In November, the Conservancy sold 5,446 acres known as the Belmont Creek tract to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), our first outsale of Clearwater-Blackfoot Project land. The tract borders BLM land on the south side of the project area. This property is important for continued grazing and has long been popular with hunters. In fact, one family that has had a long tradition of hunting in the area has joined our working group, as has the grazing lessee.
• We are nearing the end of our information-gathering stage. Ecosystem Research Group is wrapping up a comprehensive ecological assessment for the entire project footprint. This effort focuses on treatments to promote future forest heath, while considering rare animals, plants and habitats.
Next steps will involve putting that information into action on the ground, largely through strategic forest thinning and prescribed fire treatments.
• The Southwestern Crown Collaborative included Clearwater-Blackfoot Project land in their rare carnivore monitoring in winter 2015-2016. Monitoring will continue for the next two years and we look forward to seeing more of the exciting results from that study.
• Native trout investigations are underway with FWP biologists: fish shocking, redd counts and eDNA sampling have been conducted on perennial streams in the Ninemile Prairie and Gold Creek areas.
• We have finalized a forest management plan for the Primm Meadow area, and restoration work has begun to ensure forest health and fire resiliency. Fourteen acres of small diameter trees were thinned within the meadow, while Montana Conservation Corps crews thinned 20 acres adjacent to the meadow. Thirty-five acres were marked for this winter’s commercial restoration thinning project. Meanwhile, our weed control efforts are already beginning to show positive results.
• Belmont Bridge reconstruction was completed in summer 2016. The new bridge has a higher and wider span, which allows for natural runoff events and a more natural channel condition. The Big Blackfoot Chapter of Trout Unlimited headed up the project for us and donated all staff time in planning and coordination.
• Local contractors completed many priority road repairs, including the obliteration of one mile of leftover “temporary” harvest roads. Crews also continued to treat new invader weeds as well as weeds on roads open to public motorized use.
• A local forester, TNC and two neighbors have secured a grant from Montana’s Forests in Focus Initiative to make homes safer, provide logs for local mills, create jobs and improve forest health. The $249,534 grant will be used to thin about 350 acres of dense forest, to reduce potential wildfire hazards on Clearwater-Blackfoot Project land and two neighboring properties in the lower Blackfoot Valley, eight miles east of Bonner. The work will open up the forest, leaving the largest, healthiest trees and restoring more historic forest conditions. It will create 17 jobs between this December and November of 2017 and will supply 3,166 tons of material to local mills.
• Our second annual Revive & Thrive event at Tupper’s Lake, two miles west of Seeley Lake, brought nearly 100 volunteers and community members together to celebrate the project and to get some work done. Volunteers cleaned up the woods and campgrounds, constructed a trail around a portion of the lake, and installed a “beaver deceiver,” which will prevent beavers from blocking the lake’s outflow.
• Conservancy staff and partners held five public meetings, with more than 200 people in attendance. A few resounding themes have emerged from these meetings. Across the board, people care about protecting public access. We’re also hearing support for enhanced recreation opportunities and continued forest management and restoration. We have already started working with user groups to evaluate where different kinds of recreation would be possible and appropriate.
After two years of listening to the community and working on the land, we are excited to see what the coming years entail. We are moving forward with permanent protection and are looking forward to continuing to work with local communities to develop solutions that stand the test of time.
We invite you to ask questions, share concerns and provide input. Please visit nature.org/blackfoot, or contact Chris Bryant (cbryant@tnc.org, 406-214-6734) or Steve Kloetzel (skloetzel@tnc.org, 406-214-2036).
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