By LARRY ANDERSON and STAN NICHOLSON
Missoulian
Dec. 1, 2008

Like most Montanans, we come from different backgrounds and don’t always see eye-to-eye on all the issues. Despite our differences, we have come to know and respect each other over the past two years as neighbors high up on the Double Arrow Ranch in Seeley Lake.

In times when we hear so much negative news and cynicism, it is refreshing to learn about a grass-roots, cooperative community project that is all about a prosperous future for our town and healthy forests in our valley n a project that could serve as a national model for addressing forest health and economic challenges, and for protecting our backcountry heritage.

The story of the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project is a tale of how different groups in our community came together to build a positive view of subjects that have often prompted controversy but, in this instance, are bringing Montanans of all stripes together for a common cause.

The Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project will create jobs, restore forests, generate renewable energy and designate wilderness acres. It’s an effort that has grown from the needs and hopes of Seeley Lake and surrounding area residents and is rooted in Montana’s appreciation for our working lands, wilderness and outdoor heritage.

The heart of the project is a public-private partnership to invest $12 million over 10 years to restore the forest, enhance the local timber economy and generate home-grown renewable energy from forest fuels. By design, the stewardship project has progressed slowly, gaining the input and support of stakeholders along the way.

The project reflects the spirit of collaboration and restoration embodied in the Montana Forest Restoration Committee. The Blackfoot-Clearwater partners have identified where they believe restoration projects could be profitable and ecologically beneficial in the Blackfoot-Clearwater watershed and where they would restore forest diversity, decrease fire risk and provide for as many as 50 new jobs.

Seeing opportunity and shared interest, the partners added a proposed renewable energy plant to generate electricity from biomass material. The plant would further integrate the area’s timber industry by taking advantage of woody waste product that is otherwise often burned in the field, and it would diversify the area’s energy supply.

The wilderness component, like the rest of the stewardship project, sought the input of the entire community. Outfitters, snowmobile groups, timber companies, conservationists and local land owners all support the 87,000-acre expansion of the Bob Marshall-Scapegoat and Mission Mountains wilderness areas to areas managed as recommended wilderness for more than 20 years now.

Not surprisingly, given its collaborative approach, the project has won the praise of local county commissions, including those of Missoula, Powell, and Lewis and Clark counties.

But what the Project needs now is the support of our congressional delegation.

The 100-plus citizens that assembled in the Seeley Lake Community Hall for a meeting on the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project earlier this month have probably taken this proposal as far as they can go without some help from Washington.

We hope that we find the help this project deserves n because it is a rare thing when you can get environmentalists, loggers, economists,and public land managers to agree on something. It’s even more remarkable when they don’t just agree on it, but believe in it.

As we listened to Loren Rose from Pyramid Mountain Lumber talk about the importance of wilderness, and Bob Ekey from the Wilderness Society talk about the importance of local timber, we realized that is what has happened here. Through collaboration and compromise, the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project didn’t just identify what each interest cares about most; it also identified the shared values our community cares about most.

And that is what we should all care about. This project represents some of the best of the bottom-up governing that we have heard so much about this year. If all the talk of building it from the bottom-up is genuine, this project deserves to succeed.

Larry Anderson is a Missoula County commissioner and Stan Nicholson is on the board of the Seeley Lake Community Foundation.

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