I think we are often overwhelmed by the feeling that we need to try harder to safeguard the water we love. We’re bombarded by conservation-driven email campaigns, environmental direct mail pieces, political headlines and news articles reminding us that we’ve simply got to do more to protect the environment. We’re constantly being advised that we have to give more money, pay more attention, activate more people and lose more sleep in order to keep our fisheries. And because the river’s plea for protection pounds in our ears, we’re left feeling helpless and guilty if we can’t step up as well as we’d like. That’s a lot of pressure for a fisherman like me, who generally doesn’t think too deeply for too long.
And so, when President Obama signed landmark conservation legislation into law in December 2014, a collective sigh of relief from fishermen echoed bank-to-bank. The relief isn’t just in knowing that the North Fork Watershed Protection Act bans future mining and drilling on 383,267 acres of federal land in the North Fork of the Flathead River area near Glacier National Park in Northwest Montana, it’s also in knowing that a passionate team of good people worked together to accomplish what we cannot do as individuals. The new law is the result of true international cooperation among timber industry leaders, politicians from both sides of the aisle, conservation groups, local businesses and sportsmen in Canada and the United States.
The North Fork Watershed Protection Act has been 40 years in the making and is the legacy of former Montana Sen. Max Baucus. It was vehemently opposed by three conservative Republican Senators from Texas, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, who have never visited the North Fork area and who were dedicated to blocking the bill’s passage. So, to keep the bill from dying, the Montana leaders demonstrated commendable tenacity by tacking it on as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act.
The National Defense Authorization Act is a package that in addition to protecting the North Fork drainage, adds 67,000 acres to Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness Area and designates 208,000 acres nearby for conservation. However, it also gives up 14,000 acres of wilderness study areas for consideration of potential oil and gas extraction. No, it’s not exactly what Democrats wanted, and it’s not exactly what Republicans wanted. It’s a package built by partners who listened to the people they represent.
Thank you, Congressman Steve Daines and Senators Jon Tester and John Walsh for having the stamina for bipartisan collaboration. Senator Tester said, “This is how a democracy is supposed to work. You give a little and you get a lot.”
I still plan to do my individual best to respect and protect the river, but I’m now reminded that “trying harder” and “doing more” is most effective as a team. So, friends, let’s amass our voices and actions, listen to those opposed, get creative and fish on.
Read more about the North Fork Watershed Protection Act: http://flatheadbeacon.com/2014/12/20/supporters-hail-passage-north-fork-bill-conservation-milestone/
