The sound of splashing and laughing children drifts through
a dense thicket of willows and cottonwood saplings. It’s a hot, mid- Saturday
morning in early August at Grey Owl Fishing Access Site on the Yellowstone
River, crowded with a row of parked pickups and SUVs and Subarus
left behind by the early wave of fishermen and guides boats already far
downstream. Late arrivals like my son and daughter and I are everywhere. A
cowboy-hatted man and his three kids drag a sun-bleached raft to the water,
while a woman in a new Toyota 4-Runner waits her turn to launch an elegant
Lavro driftboat. A yellow Labrador pup
trots by, nose-to-gravel, pursued by a swift barefooted toddler in shorts, who
has outdistanced a young woman bearing a swim bag in one hand and a picnic
cooler in the other. We’re here to wile
away an hour or two, just passing through on our way home. Like everybody else
here, we’ve come to enjoy one of the coldest, cleanest, most accessible big
rivers in the world.
From the fly angler hunting native cutthroats on the Upper
Bitterroot to the bowfisherman stalking paddlefish in the Dredge Cuts of below
Fort Peck Reservoir, there may be no place on earth where people enjoy free
access to such a wide variety of waters, fish, wildlife and just pure outdoor
experience as they do right now in Montana. It’s a sad irony that, in a world
where top quality fishing and some of our most beautiful landscapes are
increasingly reserved for those who can pay the most for them, almost none of
the estimated 950,000 people annually who enjoy Montana’s rivers and lakes have
any idea why we have such an extensive network of public access sites,
deliberately acquired and carefully developed, to ensure that such access
remains for future generations.
That irony is even sadder because the mechanism used to
establish that visionary network of access, the Land and Water Conservation
Fund (LWCF), has been pillaged in an increasingly brazen manner for the past
two decades, with almost $17 billion of its funds removed to date. LWCF,
despite its track record of success, is now in danger of being eliminated altogether,
largely due to political leaders acting out of ideologically- hidebound
ignorance, or who simply want to use the money allocated to the LWCF for almost
anything but conservation and the public’s access to America’s outdoors.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund was born in the early
years of the 1960’s from the ideas of President John F. Kennedy, the renowned
conservation leader (and then Secretary of the Interior) Stewart Udall, and
others. It was established in 1965. The Act designated that a small portion of
the annual receipts from offshore oil and gas leases would be placed into a
fund that would be distributed to the states for projects focusing on
everything from public tennis courts and swimming pools to protecting
watersheds, national parks, wildlife and fisheries and other natural resources.
The LWCF was to have an allocation cap of $900 million – a powerful sum at a
time when real estate and development costs were very low compared to now.
Since 1965, when the money began to be available to states
and communities, LWCF has become one of the most successful and
non-controversial funding sources in history, in large part because it isn’t a
tax, and simply because it has been so successful, using funds generated by a
non-renewable resource (oil and gas) to invest in extremely popular projects in
all 50 states. (For more background, see our first LWCF story from August 15th
http://www.mtbullypulpit.org/2013/08/land-and-water-conservation-fund.html
or go here
One of those success stories was the establishment of public
Fishing Access Sites across Montana. In the first three decades after the Land
and Water Conservation Fund was created in 1965, 241 of Montana’s 775 fishing
access sites were purchased outright with LWCF money. The goal was simple:
ensure public access to the rivers and lakes for fishing and other recreation.
What was achieved was of a much larger magnitude.
“From 1965 through the 70s we put so much good work on the
ground here in Montana with LWCF money,” said Tom Reilly, who oversees LWCF
projects for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “Even as it
tapered off in the 80’s and 90’s, we were still accomplishing goals that became
a huge boon to our state, in just about every aspect of life, from swimming
pools and tennis courts in rural communities that would have never had them, to
the fishing access sites themselves. Beyond just giving people a way to enjoy
the rivers, a lot of those sites have become surrounded by development now.
They’ve become the local places where everybody goes for walks, trains their
dogs, take the kids swimming and floating. It’s why people want to live and
raise their families in these towns and cities - it goes so far beyond just
fishing access, which is all we thought we were doing at the time, that it’s
hard to imagine.” Reilly also says that
he “gets calls all the time from people in other states, asking ‘how can we do
what you have done?’ We are the envy of almost everyone in every other state.”
What the acquisition of the fishing access sites has
achieved is known to economists as a “multiplier,” a force that resonates
outward and creates more wealth for more people than the original resource
itself. Thomas Michael Power, who served for twenty years as the Chairman of
the Economics Department at the University of Montana, has studied and written
about the role of what he calls “amenity supported economic vitality” for
almost as long as the LWCF has been in existence. “What leads a person to
choose one location over another?” Power asks. “What accounts for what
demographers call the ‘resettling of the Inland west?’ The answer is found in
the transformation of western Montana, where you have the public lands and the
access to rivers, combined in many places with the cultural amenities of
college towns nearby. There are tremendous mental payoffs in living a healthy
and active life, and people in the knowledge class- most of them highly skilled
professionals- understand that. They seek out the places where they can live
that kind of life, and that’s where they put down roots and raise families. And
they create a climate for lots of start-up businesses, a climate with a lot of
dynamism.” Power notes that this does
not come about accidentally. “You have
to have leadership, people who can imagine how things could be better. And you
will always have people who oppose them. The change in how we view our rivers,
and how we’ve treated them, is incredible, but it did not happen without a
fight, and that continues today.”
The quality of life created by ready access to clean rivers
and public lands has transformed the demographics and real estate markets of
cities like Bozeman and Missoula, Power said, and a recreation economy based on
those same amenities has been “an ongoing source of income and employment” that
carries well away from the cities, as well. “You now have so many small
businesses operating seasonally, in all of these out of the way places, like
along the Salmon River in Idaho. I hear people say, ‘oh, that seasonal work,
you can’t live that way’ but many, many people do, and they choose it. They are
in a partnership or self-employed and they’ll do something else the rest of the
year. The criticism that these jobs are too low paid, or people only do them
because there’s nothing else available, is unwarranted. For most people who do
that work, it’s a choice.”
There are acres of mind-numbing but important findings about
the quantifiable strength of the recreation economy and about the power of
“amenity-supported economic vitality” in the modern day West. Clearly, the oil
and gas revenues flowing into the LWCF and on to the states have proved to be
one of the best and most reliable investments the US has ever made in its own
future. Studies conducted by the Outdoor Industry Association http://www.outdoorindustry.org/images/ore_reports/MT-montana-outdoorrecreationeconomy-oia.pdf)
find that consumer spending on outdoor recreation in Montana adds up to $5.8
billion every year, accounts for 64,000 direct jobs with $1.5 billion in wages,
and adds $403 million in state and local tax revenue to the coffers. Another
outdoor trade group, The Society of Recreation Professionals, produces an
extensive array of proof of the multiplier effect of the LWCF, and their
literature states bluntly: “The 1965 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act
(LWCF) is the most significant outdoor recreation enactment in our Nation’s history.”
To step aside from the abstract world of economic statistics
and theories and talk directly to those who live them is easy to do in Montana,
where there are hundreds of licensed hunting and fishing outfitters, operating
everything from lodges to day-trips to weeks-long wilderness pack trips. “We
probably have about 300 outfitters on our organization who offer fishing only,”
said Robin Cunningham, Executive Director of the Fishing Outfitters Association
of Montana (FOAM), “and another 100 that offer fishing along with other
activities. And of course, although I’d like to think differently, not all
outfitters are members of FOAM.” Cunningham, based in Gallatin Gateway,
Montana, is quick to acknowledge the role of the fishing access sites in his industry,
and in the economic multiplier effect. “Our clients fly here, they stay in
local motels, go out to eat, rent cars and travel, go to tackle shops and fish
on their own. You’re getting probably twice the amount of money coming in to
the state that we’re paid to guide and outfit the clients.” And it’s an
industry based on nothing more or less than clean water and access. “The big picture is that having all those
sites means we can offer our clients the kind of diversity in fishing that will
keep them happy and keep them coming back.
A Montana outfitter can offer plenty of options- if a river is not
fishing well, or if the client wants to see a particular place, or get away
from other anglers, we can do that. There’s no way we could do that without the
fishing access sites we have.” Cunningham also points out that, perhaps
counter-intuitively, the widely distributed access contributes to the health of
the world-class fishery. “No one place gets too much use. You can look at
rivers like the Madison, which is the most heavily used river in Montana-
160,000 angler visits per year. It’s still an excellent fishery, and that’s
partly because when it gets too crowded, fishermen can go to any of dozens of
other rivers or lakes, or to another part of the Madison.”
For veteran outdoorsman and outfitter John Herzer of the
Missoula-based Blackfoot Outfitters, the rivers of Montana are home as well as
workplace. Herzer says, even in his day-to-day life on the rivers, he’s never
once lost sight of just how lucky he and his family are to be so involved with,
and dependent upon, such a powerful natural resource. “We have access to what I
would say is the strongest fishery of its kind in the nation, all of these
public lands and rivers. It is just incredible.” That access is the key to
Herzer’s family business which includes two fly shops, nine employees, as many
as seventeen guides who work as independent contractors, and at least twenty
people driving shuttles on the Bitterroot and Clark Fork Rivers every day of
the season, making $20-$45 per trip.
“All of our guides have their own boats, tackle, trailers, trucks, all
of that, and every one of them is at the grocery store every day, buying
groceries for the clients. This is a very serious deal for local businesses.”
Herzer estimates that 85% of his business depends on the fishing access sites.
“Without them we are, essentially, out of business.” He says it is important to remember that each
guide and outfitter pays a $100 annual fee to use the sites, and a percentage
of their gross income to the state for the use of most of the rivers. “So that,
again, is a big revenue stream produced year after year by those access sites.
Without them, the state would not have that, either.”
“We have so many clients who won’t go to other states to
fish, because they know they’ll have the chance to fish so many different
rivers here, and if the Clark Fork, for example, is fishing poorly, we can load
up and go to the Big Hole. I cannot
emphasize how important that is to us.” Beyond business, though, Herzer says,
the public access to this resource is a fundamental part of what makes Montana,
and our nation, unique. “All of the people like you and me, who probably don’t
have the money to buy our own ranches, or own a home on a river to have a place
to fish, we have all of this. In any given season in our work, we see literally
thousands of people using the fishing access sites to enjoy the rivers. I think
a lot of people in politics forget how important all of this is to our
country.”
On a national level, the facts support that claim. The
looting of the LWCF began in earnest in the late 1980’s, and appropriations for
the Fund have decreased every year since 2001. As Tim Ahern of the Trust for
Public Land, explains, “The money still goes into the LWCF every year. No, it’s
not as much as it’s supposed to be, but last fiscal year, $322 million went in.
But the LWCF has come to be seen as just a big cookie jar- the money is
appropriated for something other than conservation.” What has to happen now,
Ahern said, is that the Congress first has to reauthorize the Act in 2014,
mandate that the LWCF be fully funded every year, and establish clearly where
the money must be used.
In Montana, the kind of partisan political leadership that
has poisoned discourse across much of the nation is uncommon. The pragmatists
among Montana’s political leadership have been relentless advocates for the
LWCF, for reauthorization, full funding, and for restoring the use of the fund
for conservation.
In February of 2013, Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon
Tester introduced SB 338, The Land and Water Conservation Authorization and
Funding Act
http://www.baucus.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1234.
Senator Tester explained to reporters, "Hunters and anglers tell me every
day that their top priority for Montana is ensuring public access to public
land. Outdoor recreation creates thousands of Montana jobs and protects our
proud outdoor traditions for future generations. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a
popular, smart investment in the future of our land, our clean water, and our
kids and grandkids who will grow up enjoying the same outdoor opportunities we
all love in Montana."
In August, Senator Baucus and his staff organized a float on
the Madison River specifically to bring attention to the importance of the
LWCF. A large flotilla of rafts and
canoes and kayaks took to the water along a carefully chosen route—- from the
Milwaukee Fishing Access site (purchased with LWCF funds) downstream to the
Missouri River Headwaters State Park (an LWCF project which preserves the site
where the Lewis and Clark expedition camped in the summer of 1805) where the
Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin Rivers all come together to form the 2300
mile-long Missouri. Along the entire route of the float is very popular ten
mile walking and biking trail, developed also with help from the LWCF, which
connects the town of Three Forks to the state park.
Scott Bosse, the Director of Northern Rockies Conservation
for the group American Rivers, took to the river with the rest of the flotilla,
(his report is here:
http://www.americanrivers.org/blog/float-senator-baucus-importance-land-water-conservation-fund/),
and ended up piloting Senator Baucus down the Madison in his raft. In an
interview last week, Bosse said he’d been thinking a lot about that day on the
river with a career politician who has been an unflagging advocate for the LWCF
and other conservation causes. “Our tagline at American Rivers is ‘Rivers
Connect Us,’ and I think that’s appropriate,” Bosse said. “But there’s
something deeper here, too, with all this effort to connect people of every
kind and every kind of means to this huge world of their rivers and fisheries.
I think what we’re talking about with the fishing access sites is that, in the
West at least, this kind of public access is the connection between the great
outdoors and our democracy.”
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