CRC gets involved- Boulder River Fire-prevention Plan

Bozeman Chronicle Letter to the Editor

June 21st, 2005

As officers of Cottonwood Resource Council (CRC), we want to express our disagreement with the three environmental groups (Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Ecology Center, Native Ecosystem Council) that appealed the Forest Service Fuels Reduction Project along the Boulder River south of Big Timber.

Through the Good Neighbor Agreement between CRC, the Northern Plains Resource Council, and the Stillwater Mining Company (SMC), SMC provided funding to establish the Boulder River Watershed Association (BRWA). In 2003, the BRWA, the Sweet Grass Conservation District, the Big Timber Fire Department, and the Big Timber District of the Forest Service initiated a fuels reduction project to educate landowners and decrease fire risk.
This cooperative effort has been well publicized and open to the public. The groups which recently appealed the project were invited to attend a discussion and tour of the effected area, but none of these groups attended. And now, this legal action threatens to delay much needed preparations for the approaching fire season. Lives and property are at stake.

CRC has long advocated that citizens participate in the public process to address their concerns. Although the right to appeal is necessary and precious, we resent the use of this right as a tactic to force delay. The groups filing the appeal should have used earlier opportunities to influence the Project. We request that they withdraw their appeal.

I am submitting this letter on behalf of the officers of Cottonwood Resource Council: Tom Agnew, Karen Hauge, Jerry Iverson, Shirley Layne.

Bizz Green

Big Timber