No surprises at interlocal meeting

There were no surprises at this year’s interlocal agreement meeting. There was, however, a good exchange of information from both the private landowner groups and the public agencies.

Tom Edwards, representing the North Fork Landowners Association, talked well about increased use of technology on the North Fork and urged everyone to take advantage of the NFLA Web site nflandowners.net and Patti Hart’s nfnews.net to keep up with events on the North Fork.

Edwards also talked about the work of the History Committee. Several oral histories are now available on their Web site.

The Weed Committee received a grant to work this summer with the Forest Service, Flathead County and the Backcountry Horsemen, and then turned to Molly Shepherd to report on Fire Mitigation Committee work.

Molly reported that the North Fork has obtained another $100,000 grant for fuels mitigation around homes and along driveways. These monies will be spent in a 75-25 basis with landowners putting up their 25 percent in cash or work.

Applications and information will be included in the NFLA spring newsletter, which will be mailed in March or April. She noted how previous grants, in conjunction with USFS Trail Creek and Red Whale projects, have done a great deal to protect private dwellings from future wildfires, but that wildfire protection is an ongoing, never ending process.

For the first time in my memory, the North Fork Compact was not represented and the North Fork Preservation Association just reported that they had expanded their board of directors and planned to expand their public outreach in the immediate future.

The Road Coalition for Health and Safety report was also short, but Ray Brown made some good points. He noted that current road projects have improved the road but are only short-term fixes — a maximum of seven years by county estimates.

With Forest Service RAC funds probably coming to an end, we could soon be looking at the same problems of a dusty, very rough and unsafe road.

Brown has done some research online and discovered other sources of federal dollars which serve National Forests and recreational areas, and he urged Flathead County to pursue them more aggressively.

Agency reports were pretty much as expected. Budgets at all levels — county, state and federal — are being cut, and services are likely to be cut.

In the meantime, the USFS Red Whale Project is continuing with nearly 400 acres hand-thinned, another 70 acres scheduled for 2012 and logging operations being done this winter. Montana DNRC also continues their projects, and slash on Moose Creek should be burnt this fall.

The Border Patrol still has 25 total agents and have snowmobiles, ATVs and a horse patrol capability. They will probably increase river patrols next summer.

I was the only one with negative comments and complained (again) about the USFS snowmobile regulations on the upper North Fork and their irrational wood permits.