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The number of acres enrolled in Block Management, a hunting access program managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, has continued its gradual decline despite efforts to bolster landowner interest in the program. Hunters have been tracking revisions to Block Management, hopeful that changes to the landowner reimbursement payment structure authorized by the last two Montana Legislatures can reverse flagging participation in the program and help alleviate concerns about...
Republicans have swept the Montana Public Service Commission election, winning each of the three seats open this cycle and maintaining the GOP's domination of the commission. Commissioners are tasked with balancing the financial health of investor-owned utilities with the interests of their customers, who cannot shop for other providers. During this election cycle, voters in many of Montana's largest cities - Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Butte and Helena - were asked to...
Grassy, sagebrushy and only occasionally interrupted by sandstone buttes or clumps of pine trees, southeastern Montana has long drawn mule deer hunters from across the state and region. As recently as 2017, Hunters have harvested more than 17,000 mule deer from this region per year, filling their freezers with venison and adding to the tills of local businesses that guide, feed and lodge them. These days, though, it's almost easier to find elk on public land than it is to...
For the second time in as many months, a state district court judge has sided with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and hunting groups in a lawsuit over elk management. The dispute relates to a 2003 law directing Fish, Wildlife and Parks to manage elk "at or below" the sustainable populations established in the state's elk management plan. Two years ago, the United Property Owners of Montana, a membership-based nonprofit that promotes its members' business interests, sued FWP,...
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is seeking public input as it overhauls mule deer management and works to understand what's driving down mule deer populations in eastern Montana. In a news release last week, FWP began soliciting public input on 11 guiding principles that the Mule Deer Citizen Advisory Council has developed to form the foundation of a new mule deer management plan. The principles include increasing mule deer populations, using the best available science to...
Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks has received tentative approval to enroll 10 eastern Montana properties in a newly launched state program to conserve prairie habitat. The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday voted unanimously to authorize the Prairie Habitat Conservation Lease Program's first batch of agreements and signaled its support for the program's larger objective of putting 500,000 acres of eastern Montana prairie into 40-year conservation lease...
On April 18th, the Bureau of Land Management adopted a long-awaited rule that aims to put conservation initiatives "on equal footing" with oil and gas leasing, grazing and other commercial uses of federal land. The rule "combines our ongoing work with a vision for conservation to help us manage lands into the 21st century," BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a video announcing the rule. "It ensures that the BLM can carry out its multiple-use and sustained-yield mission...
Ridge resident Dan Dinstel remembers his introduction to the Snowy River project, a proposal to inject 150 million tons of carbon dioxide thousands of feet below southeastern Montana's sagebrush steppe. It came in the form of an announcement in the Eagle, that the Bureau of Land Management would be hosting a public meeting to discuss a pitch to combat climate change by "safely injecting carbon dioxide - the most common greenhouse gas - deep underground, permanently preventing...
The record-breaking cold snap Montana saw this month brought days of below-zero temperatures across the state - and with them what major Montana utility NorthWestern Energy said was record-high electric demand from its customers. The arctic blast, and how the state's energy system responded, triggered a wave of analysis from folks engaged in Montana's running debate over renewable energy, coal generation and the future of the state's electric grid. The Montana Environmental...
When the Montana Legislature gaveled in two years ago, COVID-19 served as a major disruptor that added a layer of stickiness to an already complex — and occasionally opaque — process. But the pandemic also facilitated technological adaptations that let Montanans say their piece to the legislators shaping state law on their behalf without making the winter drive to Helena. Members of the public with telephone service or a stable internet connection will again be able to testify before House and Senate committees remotely in...
Low temperatures and persistent precipitation combined with an unusually high June snowpack to set the stage for historic flooding in southwest and south-central Montana this week. At least five rivers in Park, Carbon and Stillwater counties set all-time records for high flows, wiping out bridges and roads and sending entire buildings downstream in the process. Ed McIntosh, a meteorologist with Billings news station Q2, said a recent cycle of precipitation from the West Coast brought a significant amount of rainfall to...
The 13-year saga of the Keystone XL pipeline came to a close yesterday when TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, announced that it is terminating the project. Though the pipeline project has experienced multiple turns of fortune intersecting all three branches of the federal government and multiple state regulators since it was first proposed in 2008, President Joe Biden’s January reversal of the cross-border permit that had been issued by his predecessor is widely regarded as having sealed the project’s fate. If completed, the...
March 29, 2021 - A 44-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Sidney is slated to close at the end of the month as part of Montana-Dakota Utilities' pivot away from coal. In addition to closing the Lewis & Clark Station in Sidney this week, the company is planning to retire two coal plants in Mandan, North Dakota, next March. "Low-cost power available on the market, due to low-cost natural gas and increasing resources, as well as rising costs to operate these facilities, led to...
