Roadless rally set in Helena

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

Multiple-use groups will be traveling to Helena on Saturday for a rally to present Gov. Brian Schweitzer with petitions that oppose expanded protections for roadless areas on national forests in Montana.

Montanans for Multiple Use, a Flathead Valley organization, joined with Bozeman-based Citizens for Balanced Use in a petition drive that has carried on for several months.

Kerry White, a spokesman for the Bozeman group, estimates that about 10,000 signatures were gathered from every county. There are even signatures from eastern Montana counties without roadless areas, White said.

Fred Hodgeboom, president of Montanans for Multiple Use, said about 3,500 signatures were gathered in the Flathead Valley, and those signatures were presented Thursday to Flathead National Forest supervisor Cathy Barbouletos.

Hodgeboom said the petitions go along with a ballot question on the June primary ballot, about which about 63 percent of voters in Flathead County opposed prohibitions on multiple uses in roadless areas.

The governor has been seeking input from Montana counties and the general public for the past year to develop an official recommendation from the state on how federal roadless areas should be managed in Montana. That effort came in response to a federal initiative calling for more state input on the roadless issue.

The Flathead County commissioners, other counties, and other groups have provided input to Schweitzer.

Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath, a Democrat, formally joined a lawsuit filed by several states seeking to reinstate the Clinton rule. In court papers, McGrath claimed that the rule has broad public support.

But Hodgeboom and White say that's not the case.

"These petitions are just to remind [Schweitzer] that the majority of Montanans don't agree with McGrath's intervention," Hodgeboom said. "The fact is, he doesn't represent the majority of the public."

Multiple-use advocates viewed a roadless rule adopted by the Clinton administration as a permanent blanket protection for all inventoried roadless areas.

Roadless advocates, however, consider unroaded areas to be critical for wildlife security and ecological integrity.

Saturday's rally will be held at noon on the steps of the state Capitol. Members of Montanans for Multiple Use and other residents will gather at 8 a.m. at the Little Brown Church north of Bigfork to travel to Helena. The carpool leaves at about 8:30 a.m.