Volume XIX, Number 41

Wednesday, May 5, 2004

Page One News at a Glance

Locals bring home MWF awards

Final EIS endorses upgrade at RML

Trouble snowballs for Darby School Board

Race is on for Senate District 45

Locals bring home MWF awards

Two Bitterroot Valley residents and a Bitterroot citizens group were among those honored by the Montana Wildlife Federation at its annual convention. Celebrating 69 years of wildlife conservation efforts, the Montana Wildlife Federation held its annual three-day convention April 23-24.

Nearly 100 hunters, anglers and conservationists gathered at the Red Lion Colonial in Helena to bestow 18 prestigious awards to individuals and organizations whose accomplishments have contributed to natural resource and wildlife conservation and our public hunting and fishing heritage. Award winners included Bitterroot Star publisher Michael Howell, Corvallis resident Linda Habeck, and the Bitterroot River Protection Association.

The Conservation Awards are recognized throughout the state as prestigious because nominations come from statewide grassroots hunters, anglers and conservationists. MWF, Executive Director, Craig Sharpe said, "There is great value in these awards since nominations come from everyday people, from every corner of the state, citizens that hold fish, wildlife, hunting and fishing as significant to their lives and to Montana. Management agency employees and organizations that are deeply involved in the public process of managing our diverse public wildlife resources are also allowed to provide nominations."

The awards are also highly valued because they are presented by Montana Wildlife Federation, the largest and oldest citizen, hunter/angler based wildlife conservation organization in the state.

Award winners included: Dave and Marlene Welliever, Wibaux, MT - Special Landowner/Sportsmen Achievement Award; Vince Yannone, Helena, MT - Conservation Educator; Rep. Eileen Carney, Libby, MT - Conservation Legislator; Michael Howell, Stevensville, MT - Conservation Communicator; Anaconda Sportsmen's Club, Anaconda, MT - Conservation Organization of the Year; Rachel Mills, Belgrade, MT - Youth Conservationist Award; Matt Stozewski, Sidney, MT - Sportsmen's Achievement Award; Linda Habeck, Corvallis, MT - Special Sportsman's Achievement Award; Yellowstone County Commission, Billings, MT - Special Public Access Achievement Award; Lee Burroughs, Billings, MT - Les Pengally Conservation Professional of the Year; Jim Phelps, Billings, MT - Don Aldrich Conservationist of the Year; and Jim Cross, Kalispell, MT - Fred Carver Sportsman of the Year Award.

Linda Habeck, winner of a Special Sportsman's Achievement Award, has been an active member of the Ravalli County Fish & Wildlife Association for many years. As such she has represented RCFWA on wildlife issues at hearings and meetings throughout the state and at the legislature. She has served as secretary for RCFWA for the past 16 years, responsible for fundraising activities including the highly successful annual Banquet to Benefit Wildlife. As an active hunter and horse rancher, she has used her knowledge and skill to promote good sportsman-landowner relations. "As an artist of considerable skill and a person involved in a number of local 'women's' organizations she constantly articulates therein a positive image of being a person both involved in the hunting and fishing community as a recreational participant and a committed conservationist," said Dale Burk, RCFWA board member.

Bitterroot Star publisher Michael Howell was named Conservation Communicator of the Year. "Howell and the Bitterroot Star stand proudly in a long history of crusading Montana newspapers and newspapermen who have insisted the decisions affecting public resources ­ like water resources, fisheries and wildlife ­ be made with full, ongoing public disclosure and public participation," said Burk. "He more than merits the Communicator of the Year Award in 2004 from the Montana Wildlife Federation. One notable distinction is that he has made this stance as the editor of a small weekly newspaper who had more to gain if he had chosen not to be so good a journalist."

Five individuals were recognized for their outstanding conservation work relating to the Rocky Mountain Front. Front rancher Karl Rappold received a Special Landowner of the Year Award, Choteau businessman Stoney Burk and Kalispell businessman Ryan Busse were recognized with Special Legislative Lobbying Achievement Awards, Choteau school teacher and organizer of Friends of the Rocky Mountain Front, Gene Sentz, was presented with a Special Sportsman's Achievement Award, and former U.S. Forest Service supervisor of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Gloria Flora, received a Special Conservation Achievement Award.

Montana Wildlife Federation also acknowledged the leadership role that the local-citizen-based Bitterroot River Protective Association has taken to ensure the public interest of public ownership and access to Montana waterways, more specifically the Bitterroot River. The Bitterroot Valley group of nearly 200, including Rep. Jim Shockley (R) of Victor, has been embroiled in legal challenges during the past two years relating to public access and an effort to convert Mitchell Slough into a private waterway.

"The BRPA is a grassroots cross-section of Montanans who have undertaken a true David-versus-Goliath battle to protect the public interest in terms of maintaining public access to an important Montana fishery and also to prevent the private takeover of a public resource by a wealthy out-of-state landowner who has demonstrated utter contempt for the notion of the public's right to maintain and utilize, unmolested, their own resources," said Dale Burk. "In the process, the BRPA has challenged a questionable decision by a local conservation district to reclassify a public stream as a private ditch, and thereby hand over this wonderful public resource to private use. This has proven to be an issue of major importance to the maintenance of both public access to and public ownership of its free-flowing streams not only in the Bitterroot but across the entire state of Montana. This case will likely set a precedent whereby the public interest in such matters is either lost or maintained, and without the efforts of the BRPA we already would have lost the opportunity to fight for these rights.

"It is important to point out that the BRPA is made up of concerned citizens - including a weekly newspaper editor from Stevensville, a state legislator from Victor, a retired high-ranking Forest Service official, a board member of the Ravalli County Fish & Wildlife Association and the Montana Wildlife Federation, and some 200 other people from all walks of life and all political persuasions - unified by a commitment to keep public resources in public hands. They have fought an uphill battle against wealthy and powerfully entrenched foes, in the press, in the courts and, indeed, in the stream itself ­ the famous 'Mitchell Slough' ­ in a fish-in demonstration this past summer. They have thereby elevated to overwhelming public awareness the fact that all Montanans lose if this attempted conversion of this famous trout stream to private ownership by a couple of wealthy California businessmen and their privileged friends is allowed to go through."

The Conservation Awards are presented annually by Montana Wildlife Federation, yet in some years a recipient for a specific award may not be determined. Sharpe said, "The Federation awards are not given away as a token - they are taken very seriously and given only on the basis of outstanding work by an individual or organization."

An open house reception for Michael Howell and members of the Bitterroot River Protection Association will be held Friday, May 7 at the Bitterroot Star office from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The public is welcome and refreshments will be served.

Final EIS endorses upgrade at RML

By Michael Howell

Public comment is now being accepted on the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) Integrated Research Facility. The FEIS endorses the proposed expansion of the facility to include a Biosafety Level-4 (BL-4) laboratory. RML is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.

The NIH proposes to construct a 105,132 square foot building on the RML campus in Hamilton that would contain offices and medical research laboratories. The highest security level lab, the BL-4, is estimated to fill 6,750 square feet of the additional space. It is there that research will be conducted on some of the world's deadliest pathogens. Congress has authorized $66.5 million for the facility as part of the nation's efforts to increase research into the development of safe and effective countermeasures to protect the public against naturally occurring emerging infections and infections introduced deliberately through acts of terrorism.

The FEIS analyzed only two options, the "proposed action," to build and operate the Integrated Research Facility, and the "no action" alternative, which would maintain current RML operations. The FEIS identified the proposed action as the preferred alternative.

NIH will accept public comment about the FEIS through midnight June 4, 2004. The NIH will then make its formal decision about the project and issue a Record of Decision.

"The candid dialogue and community involvement greatly assisted NIH in preparing a thorough EIS document," RML Associate Director Dr. Marshall Bloom was quoted as saying in a press release.

RML is an active partner in a well-informed community that cares deeply about its people, natural setting and historical roots," Thomas J. Kindt, Ph. D., director of NIAID's Division of Intramural Research, which oversees RML, was quoted as saying. "NIAID appreciates these characteristics and will continue to work with the Bitterroot Valley community on RML issues that may affect them."

The FEIS addresses a variety of environmental effects that construction and operation of the proposed new facility might have on Hamilton and the surrounding communities. Such considerations include safety, air quality, noise, visual impact, wildlife, water quality and supply and economic effects. The FEIS includes information that responds to concerns, comments and questions raised throughout the EIS public review process. NIH issued a Draft EIS last summer and a Supplemental Draft EIS last winter.

Mary Wulff, of Coalition for a Safe Lab, expressed surprise that the FEIS had been released so soon. She said that NIH had not yet responded to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning information about the lab.

"Without that information," said Wulff, "the public cannot comment fully upon the proposal."

Wulff said that refusal by NIH to provide the requested material constituted a violation of the National Environmental Protection Act. She said that her feeling was that the NIH has already made a foregone conclusion to build the lab. Wulff said that she was especially concerned about the housing of biological weapons at the lab. Wulff claims that the introductory remarks made by NIH at the beginning of the document make it sound like it is illegal to work on biological weapons at the lab.

The document states: "RML does not and will not work on or develop biological weapons, as this is forbidden by a national security directive and international law. President Nixon, in 1969, agreed to a National Security Decision Memorandum (35), which renounced use of lethal methods of bacteriological/biological warfare and ordered destruction of all stockpiled agents. The U.S. signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, which became effective March 26, 1975 (signed by President Ford and ratified by Congress), which remains in effect today. The U.S. government maintains the position that there is no justification, including retaliation, for offensive biological weapons research..."

But when asked directly if there is any law or regulation that prohibits the presence of an agent that was designed as a biological weapon to be present at RML, NIH officials answered, "No," according to Wulff. NIH also claimed that there was no law prohibiting the creation of an agent designed as a biological weapon to be present at the lab for study, "for peaceful purposes." Again the answer from NIH was, "No." Wulff said that NIH officials admitted that it "is possible that some information about research conducted at RML could be classified." In answer to the question of whether any agents were or are now present at the lab that NIH would now consider classified information or have or would refuse to disclose, for any reason, the agency answered, "Yes. Agents that are on the NIH inventory that are currently classified have been present at RML in the past." Wulff states that, in light of the answers given to these specific questions, the introductory remarks concerning international law "appear to be designed to purposely mislead the public."

The FEIS is available on the internet at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/biodefense/Public/envimpactstate.htm and at the Missoula Public Library, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library at the University of Montana, the Bitterroot Public Library in Hamilton and the North Valley Public Library in Stevensville.

Anyone can request a copy of the FEIS by telephoning Valerie Nottingham at 301-496-7775. To provide formal comment on the document, e-mail to orsrmleis-r@mail.nih.gov, fax to 301-480-8056, or write to Valerie Nottingham, NIH, B13/2W64, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD 20892.

Trouble snowballs for Darby School Board

By Michael Howell

By the time you read this, the showdown over the controversial "Objective Origins" policy, adopted on first reading by the Darby School Board on a 3 to 2 vote last winter, will have come to a head in the school board elections on Tuesday. With two seats open on the Board and four candidates, two on each side of the issue, the Darby public will have a chance to register its opinion on the matter at the polls.

In the meantime, a side issue, the selection of a new Darby School Superintendent, has landed the School District Board of Trustees in local District Court.

At three meetings in March, the School Board held executive session to consider several candidates for Superintendent behind closed doors. The Ravalli Republic newspaper challenged the closing of these meetings and asked Ravalli County District Court Judge Jeffrey Langton to review the minutes of those meetings and determine if they were properly closed to the public or not.

At a board meeting on April 14, however, the School Board members, in a lengthy process, began to amend those minutes in an open meeting. According to witnesses the Board amended the minutes before the public without divulging the content of the minutes by painstakingly referring to paragraphs and page numbers and offering written changes.

One of the witnesses, Dixie Stark, said that she was shocked at the apparent extent of the changes being made.

"They made wholesale changes to the minutes, sometimes adding or deleting entire paragraphs," said Stark. "I thought it was highly unusual and thought I'd better warn the Ravalli Republic that the minutes they were attempting to get disclosed by the Court were being drastically altered."

As a result, Steve Carey, attorney for the newspaper, requested an affidavit from Stark as to what she had witnessed and included it in his request for a temporary restraining order from the Court to block the alteration or destruction of the minutes. That order was approved by Judge Langton on April 23. Langton set May 5, the day after School Board elections, to hear from the Board about its attempted change of the minutes.

With two pairs of candidates squared off over the 'Objective Origins' policy, incumbent Bob Wetzsteon and candidate Eric Abrahamsen being against adoption of the policy and incumbent Gina Schallenberger and candidate Robert House in support of it, the community has a chance to make a decision on the issue by voting in the appropriate candidates.

Proponents of the policy have apparently run afoul of the law in their zeal to support Schallenberger and House, first by placing a lot of signs out in support of the two candidates without the proper disclaimer required by law disclosing who paid for the advertising material, and secondly by placing a pop-up ad on the school's website endorsing the candidates.

Linda Vaughey, state Commissioner of Political Practices, said the signs were paid for by a political action committee called Montana Advocates for True Science. She said that while it is a violation of the law, she believes the matter is being corrected and the proper disclaimer was being added to the signs.

It is also unlawful for a school district to advertise for electoral candidates. Superintendent Jack Eggensperger denied having any knowledge of the advertising on the website, calling it unauthorized. Once informed of the ad, Eggensperger got computer systems specialist Trevor Howe, who placed the ad on the site, to remove it. Howe may be reprimanded for his actions.

Race is on for Senate District 45

By Michael Howell

Republican State Representative Jim Shockley has turned his eyes on the Senate and announced his candidacy for Senate District 45. Shockley has served in the legislature since being elected to the House of Representatives in 1999. Shockley will face Democrat Kerry Wall-MacLane in the Senate race.

Shockley is 59 years old and served 22 years in the Marines Corps. He attended Law School at the University of Montana and practiced law in the service. Politics is in his blood. His grandmother was the Mayor of Darby in 1929.

Shockley considers one of his major accomplishments while serving in the legislature to be the passage of the Bitterroot River Basin Closure, which prohibits any further surface water claims from being filed until the Water Rights Adjudication process is complete. He also carried the bill to get a second District Court Judge in Ravalli County. Using his influential position as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Shockley was also instrumental in stopping the Governor, the Supreme Court and the Senate from establishing an Intermediate Appellate Court.

"That saved the public a lot of money and hassle," said Shockley. "Right now you have to go to Court two times if a case is appealed. We don't need to go to Court three times."

The main issues facing the legislature in its next session, according to Shockley, are the effects of deregulation, natural resource issues, and education and taxes.

"In order to increase spending on education, as the current court decision by Judge Sherlock will require, we either raise taxes or cut spending somewhere else," Shockley said.

Shockley said he does not support the petition to allow cyanide mining in the state.

"The industry has proved that they cannot do it right and they have left Montanans to pay the clean up. I'm not ready to let them try again," he said.

Shockley said that, if elected, he will ask to be placed on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Fish and Game Committee, and perhaps the Natural Resource Committee.

Kerry Wall-MacLane, a 46-year-old project specialist and educator for Kids First of Ravalli County, has thrown his hat in the ring for a seat in the Senate serving District 45.

Wall-MacLane was born in Michigan but moved to Montana at the age of 18, in 1976. He attended film school at Montana State University in Bozeman and then got a degree in Elementary Education at the University of Montana in Missoula.

He has been working for non-profits in the social service sector for 20 years. He started the North Side Community Gardens in Missoula in 1984 and the Hamilton Community Garden in 1997. He has served on several non-profit boards including Missoula/Ravalli Transportation and Management Association, the van pool serving Sula to Missoula. He helped initiate and served on the board of Bitterroot Ecological Awareness Resources (BEAR), and is active in the Alternative Energy Resource Organization (AERO). He has also served on the the board of the Teller Wildlife Refuge.

He has been a farmer and seed grower in the Bitterroot, working for 10 years with his wife, Sue, in the non-profit natural seeds company Garden City Seeds.

He is a trained prevention specialist currently working for Kids First where he works with parents and young people in various programs to fight drug addiction. He is excited about expanding the Family Resources Center and Parent Network into Stevensville and Florence schools. A Kids First North is in the works for the Florence area.

Wall-MacLane said that the major issues facing Montanans is the economy, taxes, education and energy.

"It's no coincidence that the State's deficit equals the tax breaks given away over the last few years," he said. He said Montana is a big state with few people that can't afford to be taxed any more.

"We need to tax the big out-of-state companies that do business here," said Wall-MacLane. He was critical of the concept of giving tax breaks to companies in order to produce jobs.

"There is no requirement to produce jobs to get the tax breaks and no one has to show that they have produced any jobs," he said.

Wall-MacLane said that education has to be fully funded in the state. He said that it is ridiculous to underfund education and hope for a viable future.

"You can't cut education and expect to have a quality work force," he said.

He said that we need to protect the core values of clean air and clean water that bring people and companies to the state.

He was critical of energy deregulation and said, "We have to re-regulate." He said that privatization of a basic service like energy will not work. If it is not publicly owned, he said, it should at least be publicly controlled. He said that there are several ways to do it, but buying back the dams would be a good investment.

Wall-MacLane said that conserving resources is also being fiscally responsible.

"I think fiscal responsibility cuts across party lines," said Wall-MacLane.

Kerry and Sue Wall MacLane have two children, a son who is a junior at Corvallis High School and a daughter who is a sophomore at the University of Montana.