CONCLUSION 



Logging, Mining and Grazing, Wilderness. Water and Land: 



What's In Store and How To Take Fart 



Let's face it: Rock Creek is a touchy subject 

 and likely to remain so. The river is simply too 

 beautiful, too lush, too abundant with spiritual and 

 financial treasure not to engender fierce, sometimes 

 jealous debate. The bickering hasn't been all bad, 

 though; a quarter century of tussling over 

 everything from snakes to cyanide has taught the 

 public a lot about managing riparian areas in general 

 and the Rock Creek watershed in particular. In turn, 

 state and federal agencies have come to recognize 

 it's not only possible to involve the lay public in 

 land management, it's also vital to do so. For 

 without the public's participation and cooperation, 

 the best-laid plans in a state as big and wild as Mon- 

 tana will come to naught. 



This does not mean that conflicts between 

 such disparate values as environmental conserva- 

 tion and resource extraction, or scenic preserva- 

 tion and commercial development, will disappear. 

 In fact, as the state and region become more crowd- 

 ed, the stream's recreational charms become more 

 widely known and timber grows more scarce 

 elsewhere, we can look forward to years of 

 lively— and constructive — debate over the health 

 and use of Rock Creek. As this document goes to 

 press, members of such groups as Trout Unlimited 

 and Friends of the Bitterroot are calling for a 

 drainage-wide Environmental Impact Statement for 

 ten years of management action in Rock Creek.' 

 Another group, the Lolo-Clearwater Forest 

 Defense, attracted 75 people to a March, 1991 

 meeting in Missoula to consider such alternative 

 management scenarios as a Rock Creek National 

 Recreation Area, which could include a prohibition 

 on logging.^ Here are some issues and trends to 

 watch for: 



For the ten-year period beginning in 1989, 

 the Forest Service plans to offer nearly ""O million 

 board feet of timber for sale in the Rock Creek 

 drainage.' That compares with fewer than 25 

 million board feet logged in the previous ten years, 

 and approximates the intensity of logging that in- 

 spired the public to force a moratorium on timber 

 sales in the mid-19^0s.'' A three-fold incrca.se in 

 timber sales raises troubling questions. What kmd 



of monitoring is preceding these sales? Will that 

 monitoring meet the intent of the landmark Rock 

 Creek Advisory Committee agreements? Has 

 monitoring improved or declined in recent years? 

 The Montana Department of Fish, VCildlifc and 

 Parks plans to evaluate and comment on all new 

 logging proposals. The public will also have the op- 

 portunity to add its voice to the process during the 

 mandated periods open to comment. 



What about mining plans in the Rock Creek 

 drainage? A flurry of monitoring efforts preceded 

 closure of the Bagdad mine, and other large pro- 

 jects on the Lolo National Forest can be expected 

 to receive similar scrutiny. But what about small 

 mines? There is no single clearinghouse for infor- 

 mation about mining projects, and various agen- 

 cies tend to fall behind in record-keeping, inspec- 

 tion and enforcement. The public, of course, will 

 have a chance to monitor and comment upon a 

 number of new mining proposals during the per- 

 mitting process. The problem is, mining law is so 

 byzantine and the industry so decentralized that 

 even the eyes of ardent conservationists tend to 

 glaze over when it comes time to evaluate small 

 claims, their deleterious potential and the regula- 

 tions that apply to them. Those wanting to keep 

 an eye on mining claims should note, however, that 

 a wealth of information is easily accessible from the 

 files and computers of the Clark Fork Coalition in 

 Missoula, the Montana Bureau of Mines and 

 Geology in Butte, the Hard Rock Mining Bureau of 

 the State Lands Department in Helena, the Water 

 Quality Bureau of the Montana Department of 

 Health and Environmental Sciences, the Philipsburg 

 and Lolo Ranger Districts and the mining geologists 

 and administrators at Forest Service regional head- 

 quarters in Missoula. All are cooperative; and a 

 tremendous amount of information is available for 

 the asking. 



There seems to be an endless supply of plans 

 for wilderness protection in the Rock Creek 

 drainage. They range from the limited Forest Ser- 

 vice suggestions to the sweeping recommendations 

 of a new plan put forward by the .Mliance for the 

 W lid Rockies The plan, known .i.s the Wild Rockies 



