Stakeholders get answers
MINERAL COUNTY – A group of Mineral County land management stakeholders met on Tuesday, Sept. 2, to discuss how recently discovered information could affect the way forests in the county are utilized in the future.
While the group, called the Mineral County Resource Coalition, has been meeting for months discussing lingering land management issues in the area, the recently uncovered information came as a result of one resident’s desire to know why a single road was closed to the public.
After a Freedom of Information Act was requested by Mineral County Commissioners to determine why certain roads are off limits on public land, it was discovered, according to officials, there was no judicious or timely reasoning to maintain the closure.
According to Montana State University Extension Officer Kevin Chamberlain, the closure was based on a 35-year-old study of elk population and migration conducted when forest conditions were vastly different than they currently are and this brought up even more questions in his mind. And they aren’t all just about roads.
“What precipitated this was I wanted to know why a certain gate was in a certain place,” Chamberlain said. “Why is that gate there? We are trying to understand why these decisions were made. In the letter we received, it stated there was no formal agreement between the Forest Service and Fish, Wildlife and Parks to do these closures.”
According to Chamberlain, the meeting was intended to filter through the hundreds and hundreds of pages of information received as a result of the FOIA request.
While it will take some time, Chamberlain said eventually the goal is to acquire an understanding of how decisions, such as the one to close a single road, are made at a state and federal level with the ultimate goal of being able to effectively communicate with those entities to change policy.
“These documents go a long ways toward explaining that,” Chamberlain said. “The feds (federal government) require that a collaborative process be a part of local projects. We want to represent the people of Mineral County. These decisions are made at a higher level with no regard for the people they affect. They’re made by people who don’t live here and don’t have to live with the effects of the decision.”
Chamberlain said one of the main issues the group has with decisions made at higher levels of government regarding Mineral County, its natural resources and subsequently its residents, is there are plenty of entities looking out for the forest, but in his opinion, there are few looking out for the people who live here.
“There’s plenty of people looking out for the critters,” Chamberlain said. “There are plenty of people who look out for endangered species like fish and other things. There’s really no one out there looking out for the people of Mineral County. The people of Mineral County need an avenue where they can express their opinions and have them be heard and applied on the ground.”
The MCRC includes FS officials, county commissioners, Chamberlain, local school board members, Mineral Community Hospital officials and other stakeholders. One member, Superior Ranger District Ranger Tawnya Brummett, said she came away from the meeting feeling very positive for the future of county land management issues.
“One of the key questions has been why does the Forest Service have roads that are closed and others that are open,” Brummett said. “The FOIA (requests) documents where those decisions were made. We will provide Kevin Chamberlain and the group that he chairs (MCRC) with a map with all the different roads and their status. The group will go through that map and identify the high priority areas where people want something different.”