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Covering the Bitterroot Valley – “Where Montana Begins!”
’ ! l a c o est at L
June 29th, 2019
‘The B Volume XXXIV, Number 38
Helping out the fish
Established 1985 - Locally owned & independent
Forest Service seeks comment on installation of fish screen By Michael Howell
The preferred alternative for a fish screen installation on the East Fork Ditch, called a corrugated water screen, if approved, will be the first of its type to be installed in Ravalli County. It stops the fish from entering the ditch and allows them safe return to the river and its unique design is self-cleaning using the waters own flow over the corrugated surface.
Hamilton city council news By Michael Howell
All the signs of spring are showing up in Hamilton. The robins are out rebuilding their old nests and the city’s coldpatch crew is out filling potholes. Donny Ramer, Director of Hamilton’s Public Works Department, told the City Council last week that he will soon have a full inventory of the potholes that can then be prioritized. The city’s streetsweeper has also hit the streets starting on Pine, 10th, State, Ravalli, Fairgrounds, and Kurtz, and will begin working in the downtown on nights that are above freezing starting on the 12th or the 19th. The City Council granted Jeremy Weaver, owner of the EATibles Food Truck, permission to park his food truck on the city’s public parking lot at 2nd and State for an additional six months. Weaver has been operating his food truck from the parking lot two days a week but asked for and was approved for another day of operation. To provide some flexibility, he may operate the food truck for three days a week on any of four days, from Wednesday through Saturday. The new 6-month authorization begins on May 1, 2019. Councilor Travis Martinez asked a few questions of Weaver including whether or not other food vendors were allowed per-
mits to use the parking lot. “It’s open to other vendors,” said Weaver. “The more the merrier. If we can bring in others, I could have something different for lunch. That would be great.” The permit extension was approved on a 5 to 0 vote with Martinez abstaining. The council approved the installation of a StoryWalk in Claudia Driscoll Park. A StoryWalk is a children’s story book that is spread out page by page across a number of reading stations along an approximately .25 mile trail that promotes health and literacy in children. StoryWalk is generally geared for children between the ages of 1-7. Kaitlin Anderson of the Montana State University Extension Office proposed erecting a StoryWalk in the park. The StoryWalk project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, Vermont, and developed in collaboration with the Vermont Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition (VBPC) and the Kellogg Hubbard Library. Anderson said that the pages of the book will be mounted on the posts in such a fashion that they can be removed and replaced easily so that the story can be changed. The stories will be posted every Saturday through May. Anderson said that a survey was planned to assess the effectiveness and popularity of the program to see if it is something that
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
the community wants to continue. The council adopted a job description for City Planner/ Administrator. The Mayor formed a selection committee consisting of the Mayor, the Council President, Public Works Director, City Attorney and City Clerk to help devise the new description. The new position will probably work out of the Public Works building. The council also revised the description for the Street seasonal positions to drop the requirement for a Commercial Driver’s License to require that one be obtained within a year of being hired. Ramer said the department was looking to hire one ninemonth position this year. The council also approved agreements with the Bitterroot Red Sox and the Hamilton Babe Ruth teams for use of the ballfields for the 2019 season. The agreements have not changed from last year. The new justice center building being remodeled on Main Street will be named the City of Hamilton Justice Center and a sign will be placed on the wall of the building with appropriate lighting. It will house the Justice Court, the Police Station and the City Attorney’s office. Although two interview rooms were included in the center’s design, no detention cells will be located in the building.
The Bitterroot National Forest is inviting the public to review and make comments on the East Fork Ditch Fish Screen Project. The project proposes to install a fish screen on the headgate of the East Fork Ditch. The East Fork Ditch is located on the north bank of the East Fork Bitterroot River at river mile 28.7, across from Bonanza lands subdivision 17 miles east of Sula. The legal location of the point of diversion is T2N, R17W, S20NW¼. Installation of the fish screen would require the following activities: (1) excavating and building the foundation for the fish screen, (2) installing the screen, and (3) burying a “go back” pipe between the screen and the East Fork Bitterroot River. The “go back” pipe allows fish that swim up to the screen to be able to get back into the river. The footprint of the excavation is estimated at 20 feet wide by 20 feet long, centered on the existing headgate. Installation would occur between October 19th and December 1st. The purpose of the project is to keep fish out of the ditch. In its currently unscreened condition, numerous Westslope cutthroat trout enter the ditch throughout the summer, and bull trout are also at risk of becoming trapped and perishing in the ditch when the
water is shut off in October. “Just the fact that it’s located on an important section of the river for Westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout makes it a high priority for a fish screen,” said Bitterroot National Forest fisheries biologist Michael Jakober. “You can add to this the fact that it is a bigger sized ditch,” he said. According to Jakober, they have done some electro-shocking in that section of the river and in the first hundred meters of the ditch. Although no endangered bull trout were found in the ditch, bull trout were found in that section of the river. Jakober said that the electroshocking was limited to once per summer so that it doesn’t mean that no bull trout make it into the ditch. “There is nothing stopping them,” said Jakober. He said the number of Westslope cutthroat trout found in the ditch has ranged from 15 to 40 in the first 100 meters of the ditch. Many are only 5 to 6 inches in length but some have been 10 to 12 inches. Some juvenile Mountain Whitefish were also found in the ditch. The agency chose the lowest cost alternative as the “preferred alternative” in this case. The cost is estimated at $33,500. The other alternatives were estimated to cost $58,480 and $51,500 respectively. The particular type of fish screen being proposed as the preferred alternative for instal-
lation, called a corrugated water screen, has not been used before in Ravalli County, according to Jakober. It is supposedly self-cleaning, although Jakober said the agency has found that no fish screen is really self-maintaining. They all take some sort of regular maintenance, some more than others. But this uniquely designed passive screen, which uses water flow itself to clean the screen, promises to be much more efficient than the older style manual screens that could easily clog within an hour under certain conditions. The self-cleaning corrugated screens are also a whole lot cheaper than the more sophisticated self-cleaning screens with paddle wheels and mechanical wipers like the one up Skalkaho Creek. Jakober said that the agency had been batting around the idea of installing a fish screen on the East Fork Ditch for years but did not have the money to do it until Trout Unlimited stepped up to help out. He said TU has been the major driver in finding the money to do this project. Jakober estimates that only 5% of the ditches in the valley have a fish screen. Christine Brissette, Special Projects Manager for Trout Unlimited in Missoula, said that they worked with FWP and the Bitterroot National Forest in identifying this as a priority site and then See FISH SCREEN, page B4
County seeks FAA approval of airport land purchase agreement By Michael Howell
After several weeks of negotiations, the Ravalli County Commissioners have reached a preliminary agreement with Brad Mildenberger to purchase about 120 acres of land adjoining the Ravalli County Airport for $3 million for the purpose of runway expansion. The commissioners voted last Friday to forward that preliminary agreement to the Federal Aviation Administration for approval as the agency is expected to fund anywhere from 90% to 100% of the runway expansion project. The project was put on hold for quite a while when the local group Informed Citizens Against Airport Runway Expansion (ICAARE) sued the FAA over
approval of the Environmental Assessment of the project. Last December the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling in favor of the FAA. Ravalli County Commission Chair Jeff Burrows said the county was advised by the FAA to simply move forward with the efforts to secure the needed property. At the same time a special funding opportunity has arisen as over a billion dollars had been earmarked by the FAA to help with “supplemental funding” for airport projects. Burrows said that typically in the past the FAA has provided 90% of funding for airport projects requiring a 10% local match. The Montana State Aeronautics would usually step in and cover half of that, leaving the local government
covering only 5% of the total project costs. The local Airport Safety Foundation has also stated in the past that it could potentially cover this cost for the county as well. “In this case,” said Burrows, “with all that supplemental funding available, especially the new supplemental funding available through the FAA, we have a very good chance to get this project 100% funded.” Burrows said the county hired a professional negotiator and worked hard on striking a deal with Mildenberger in order to take advantage of the window of opportunity. The total cost of the runway expansion project is still not clear, according to Burrows, but is being currently estimated at $12 to $15 million.
promoting hunting in the surrounding area. FWP did what they could by raising the number of permits for mule deer doe in that hunting district from 200 to 300. Scullion thinks it’s been something of a success for him. He said last year he did not see a single deer in his yard. “But to tell you the truth,” he said, “I think we just drove them down to the people living down below and now they have a problem. Something has got to be done. It’s a growing problem.” Addressing a deer problem within any given subdivision by managing the deer in the surrounding area is also very complex. Singleterry and Mowry gave a short history of how the hunting districts were devised, each with its own set of regulations and limits, and how they have been
amended in recent years. But the scientific management of wildlife is one thing and the goals of that management are something else. People want different things when it comes to wildlife. Some just want meat, for instance. Some just want horns. According to Singleterry, Ravalli County has two of the most popular trophy districts in the state, #270 and #261. He said trophy hunters can really get obsessed. He said there are guys that go out all the time and take photographs of the deer and get to know them very well. They’ll even trade pictures like baseball cards. They watch the animal for years and wait until they get the tag and then they know right where to go and when to get their trophy. Other people are not so interested in special events and
want a dependable and plentiful supply. Other people may want a little less deer in the area, period. “For every change you want, somebody wants something different. Our job is to balance that and protect the resource at the same time,” said Singeterry. Singletree said in areas where covenants prevent hunting that the best thing to do is to become “deer aware” the way many people, especially on the west side of the valley, have to be “bear aware.” He said there are things you can do that will attract the deer. If you don’t want the deer, you should quit attracting them. Plant things that they are not inclined to eat. Don’t plant fruit trees, for instance. If you have a food source, like a hay stack, or
Subdivisions in north valley facing deer problems By Michael Howell
Officials from Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks were in Florence last week at a community meeting sponsored by the Riverview Orchards Landowners Association to address the homeowners’ growing problem with browsing herds of deer, some even showing threatening and aggressive behavior towards pets and humans. Fish, Wildlife and Parks Bitterroot Wildlife Biologist Rebecca Mowry and local FWP Game Warden Justin Singleterry stressed the need for public involvement and public input in the process of managing wildlife. “The wildlife is not ours, FWP does not own the wildlife. The government does not own the wildlife. In Montana, the wild-
life belongs to the public,” said Mowry. “It’s my job to see that we are not doing something biologically harmful to the animals.” Singleterry began by pointing out that there are laws which place “sideboards” on what the agency and the public can do with wildlife. At the same time there are some regulations, adopted by certain agencies, that have to be followed. Add to this the regulations that private citizens can place upon themselves, like subdivision covenants, and you have a complex mix that can easily cause conflict. In this case, for instance, hunting is the main tool that FWP uses to manage wildlife populations. But as Bill Swendsen, President of the Riverview Orchards Landowners Association, made clear, the covenants on
the 119 residents state clearly that “No wild bird or animal shall be trapped, hunted, or killed within the properties, except for protection of life and limb or to prevent unreasonable property damage.” He stated later in the meeting that there was no chance of that hunting restriction being lifted. Bill Scullion, president of another homeowners association located on Eight Mile Road, came ready to talk about what’s “reasonable” in terms of property damage. He said two years ago he had over $10,000 in landscaping destroyed by over fifty deer. He said they conducted a survey and counted over two hundred to three hundred deer within about a five-squaremile area. Homeowners in his association don’t allow hunting either. But that didn’t stop Scullion from
See DEER, page B4