North Fork groups reshuffle

Summer on the North Fork may seem a little monotonous. Every August the river drops until it is more of a hike from the Border to at least Ford Station than a float. The road gets so rough and dusty, especially since the Department of Agriculture screwed up dust abatement, that it is unsafe and of course all of the private landowner groups hold their annual meetings and elections.

The Preservation Association re-elected Debo Powers as President of that group and basically reshuffled the Board of Directors with the same folks remaining on the board. This Board of Directors conduct almost all business during the year with periodic action alerts to members. The action alerts basically urge members to write letters in support of or opposed to positions taken by the board. These are mostly to support or oppose state and federal management policies.

The Landowners’ Association merely re-elected the entire board, including Larry Wilson as president. Main duty of this board is to prepare a budget for membership approval and put together the social and educational program for next year. All committees were reappointed for the next year and any members who wanted to join a committee or be taken off should contact any board member.

The North Fork Compact elected Bruce McNeil to replace Don Sullivan as chairman and Cecily McNeil to the post of Treasurer. Like the NFPA, the compact meets only once per year. Since the 20 acre minimum lot size was adopted as official county zoning on the North Fork, the compact has pretty much floundered. The annual meeting is poorly attended and except for general environmental leanings has not had an issue to focus on. Unless they find an issue to create support for the group, it is my feeling they should fold their tent and cease to exist.

That seems to be exactly what the Coalition for Health and Safety have done since more and more dust abatement has pushed road paving and its cost into the background.

Lightning strikes on Coal Ridge and near Whale Buttes this week are the big topics of discussion. Apparently, no reaction to Coal Ridge allowed that fire to expand to over 300 acres.

On Sunday we were told that Whale Buttes was a top priority for suppression with air attacks underway and a 10 man crew prepared to attack it on Monday morning. On Monday morning Forest Bulletins said due to difficult terrain, the hand crew would not be used and the fire would be controlled with air strikes.

As of 11 a.m. Monday, the ground crew was gone, there was no sign of air attack and the fire could be clearly seen skunking around in four or five spots. In my opinion, the right kind of wind could spread this fire quickly to the east and could threaten either Moose Creek drainage or Whale Creek or even both. The terrain does not look that tough to me, although it is steep and I could not assess the amount of deadfalls. If this fire makes a run the USFS will have lost fifteen years of improving credibility. We will hope for the best.

Larry Wilson’s North Fork Views appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.