Longtime Clark Fork Coalition leader retiring

The Clark Fork Coalition is headquartered in Missoula, but their entire mission is dedicated to protecting and restoring the Clark Fork River basin. That includes Mineral County and Sanders County to where the river joins the Flathead River at Paradise.

For three decades, the CFC has worked to restore and sustain the Clark Fork and its tributaries, ensuring it can flow with clean, cold, and abundant waters for generations to come. 

They are science-based and community-driven, as evidenced by their genesis in 1985: Dozens of community members banded together to stop a pulp and paper mill  from dumping pollution into the Clark Fork River downstream of Missoula. The river carries scars of a legacy of service with Butte being the primary spot during the days of the Copper Kings. Toxic mine waste, damaged stream banks, and disconnected tributaries, however, it’s decidedly a watershed on the upswing. 

The coalition led the charge and became one of the most widely respected and locally effective conservation organizations in the West.

When Karen Knudsen moved to Missoula more than three decades ago, she was shocked to learn that many people didn’t go into the river because of how contaminated it was. That’s difficult to try and imagine today when the river fills each summer with people floating, paddleboarding and fishing. 

Thirty-one years ago, Knudson began her career at the CFC moving from different departments to the business manager and communications director to the coalition’s leader in 2007, a time when everything was clicking. 

Having left remarkable results over the time, she is retiring. Her final day will be Wednesday, May 15. 

“So much of CFC’s work on behalf of the river is about long-term, deep change, with incremental improvements ruling the day,” she shared. “But if pressed to curate a list of significant wins, I would have to say the removal of Milltown Dam, the cleanup of its contaminated reservoir, and the return of the Clark Fork-Blackfoot confluence to a free-flowing state was epic.” 

That was a monumental feat and the highest priority of the CFC at the time. Every accomplishment that the coalition has made benefits everyone, especially residents in County 54, being downriver from the targeted hotspots. A few others at the top were the cleanup and restoration of Silver Bow Creek, the headwaters of the Clark Fork River, which had been devoid of aquatic life for decades. Protecting the Lower Clark Fork and the Cabinet Mountains’ wilderness waters by blocking a proposed underground copper mine and a coal-fired power plant in Thompson Falls. 

The list is long and impressive of successful projects. 

“That said, we’re not done. And despite ample opportunities and tools at the ready, some pesky obstacles remain,” Knudsen continued. “For example, the regulatory and statutory frameworks that guide water management in Montana are outdated. They have not evolved with the realities of climate change and over-appropriation of water supplies, and to top it off, the laws that protect both water quality and quantity are routinely under attack.” 

The big concern for CFC is the urgency factor. 

“Smurfit is essentially a languishing industrial wasteland and is sitting exposed to Montana’s dynamic climate. We know that the Clark Fork will, at some point, reclaim and inundate the historic channels and lands that Smurfit’s toxic dumps and sludge ponds currently occupy. We also know what big floods can do,” she said and that is a serious matter for downriver communities. 

“In the bigger picture, we’re also seeing a huge influx of new residents and growth pressure. Because of the constraints posed by mountains, along with the lure of water, development gets concentrated in river valleys and along ecologically vital creeks and streams. As these waterways degrade from human impacts, so go nesting birds, fish spawning sites, travel routes and refuge for wildlife species. We need to double-down on ways to build a water ethic that makes the protection of freshwater resources a central goal, not an afterthought,” Knudsen expressed. 

After a couple of months to recalibrate, Knudsen will be back as an advocate for the Clark Fork River working with other volunteers to continue what she started doing 31 years ago.