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Undaunted Monument: Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument

With Secretary of the Interior Zinke saying he will recommend that the monument remain unmodified, life goes on in the Breaks

For two consecutive Saturdays in early spring groups of volunteers, guided by Friends of the Missouri River Breaks Monument and Bureau or Land Management staff, headed out to the upper end of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument to plant cottonwood trees at campsites along the river.

This effort was part of an ongoing improvement program in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument and a sort of symbol of the cooperative effort put forth in the daily operations of the monument.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke shortly after his appointment was tasked with reviewing the status of monuments of 100,000 acres or more created since Jan. 1, 1996. The 377,000-acre Breaks monument falls well within those guidelines, but Zinke announced Aug. 2 that the Breaks monument is no longer under review​ and that he will recommend to President Donald Trump that no modifications be made to the monument.

"I'm announcing the review of the​ Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument has concluded and I am recommending to the president that no changes be made to the monument​," ​​Zinke said. "​​The monument is one of the only free-flowing areas of the Missouri that remains as Lewis and Clark saw it more than 200 years ago." 

March 25, a group of 17 volunteers, who had camped overnight at Lone Tree Coulee Recreation Site along the river, caravaned to a prepared planting site about a mile downriver on the Terry Ranch, said Joe Offer, stewardship director for the Friends. This is the first year incorporating the camp out with the tree planting and it was such a success they plan on doing it for future planting days, Offer said.

The group planted 80 trees in five hours at the site called Pilot Rock Ranch, said Tim Dwyer, executive director of the nonprofit Friends.

The holes were pre-drilled to 8 feet the week before, he said, but the volunteers had to prep the holes with fertilizer, set and bury the saplings, which had been started from mature galleries, and put up a deer fence around each tree with two metal posts and tall deer fencing. And Friends staff, volunteers or interns will maintain the saplings for two years or until the trees are mature enough to survive on their own.

"Habitat," Dwyer said. "Essentially it's wildlife habitat. Without cottonwoods there you lose bird habitat and shade habitat for big game ... and shade for riparian habitat."

This is the fifth year of the Friends' restoration project planting cottonwoods at different sites along the 149 miles of the Breaks monument. The trees would normally reseed themselves if dams on the Missouri didn't keep the river from flooding. Flooding, he said, is what makes the trees reproduce.

In place of flooding, the Friends of the Missouri Breaks steps in to plant, but it takes cooperation from landowners to make that happen, as it does for BLM to establish and maintain about 20 campgrounds, plus picnic areas, interpretive sites and restrooms.

The monument, which was established in 2001 under the Antiquities Act, has conservation easements with landowners to develop and maintain these sites, and to provide access to historic and other significant locations along the river. Easements also provide public access to historic and other significant sites located on higher ground than the river banks, Dwyer said.

As stewards and advocates of the monument, they have to be conscientious of the landowners, he said.

"The private landowners play a big role in the access to the monument, and for the most part they're good natured," he said. "If they don't want to you cross their land - maybe they have something going on, maybe a planting or something and that isn't going to happen - then they'll send folks to the main sites like Coal Banks or Judith landing or walking in the Bullwhacker. There's a lot of public areas, public access points."

The Terry Ranch, owned by Casey and KellyAnne Terry, has been named an Undaunted Stewardship Site, Dwyer said.

Undaunted Stewardship is a voluntary, incentive-based, land management program that is intended to foster protection and improvement of the environment and significant places while continuing agricultural production. Managed by Montana State University in Bozeman, BLM and the Montana Stockgrowers Association, it certifies ranches as land stewards for utilizing sustainable grazing and land management practices.

The 377,000 acres of public land, along with about 80,000 acres of private land and 40,000 acres state land, within the boundaries of the monument, which stretches from Fort Benton to the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, encompasses a number of historically significant landmarks and official designations. Much of the interest in the monument stems from the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveling what is now the Breaks monument area from May 24 through June 13, 1805.

The 149 miles of the Missouri River within the monument was named a National Wild and Scenic River in 1976. It is part of the Lewis and Clark National Trail and the Nez Perce Trail, and it has historic and cultural sites from Native American to homesteader. It also includes unique geological formations and is home to an array of wild game, including bighorn sheep, and aquatic life, including paddlefish.

The Wild and Scenic River designation put many protections in place, said Clare and Ed Allderdice, whose Virgelle Valley Ranch stretches along the river from Coal Banks Landing to Little Sandy Creek and includes about half their 3,600 acre ranch and another handful of the 3,600 acres of state lands they lease within the monument boundaries.

"As far as we're concerned the monument was saved with the Wild and Scenic (River designation)," Clare Allderdice said.

But the National Wild and Scenic River website says that those regulations do not govern what private citizens can do with their land so much as what the federal government cannot do with theirs.

"It prohibits federal support for actions such as the construction of dams or other instream activities that would harm the river's free-flowing condition, water quality, or outstanding resource values. However, designation does not affect existing water rights or the existing jurisdiction of states and the federal government over waters as determined by established principles of law," the website says.

It also limits how much land the federal government can buy within the wild and scenic area, even from willing sellers, but it does not supersede any existing water rights.

The possibility of the monument allowing land grabbing and water rights infringement by the federal government are sticking points that still rankle landowners 16 years after the monument was designated.

"The only thing that we really don't like about the monument is that they've taken in so much deeded land," Clare Allderdice said. "They included the deeded land without our permission actually. They had a Wild and Scenic deal in place that allowed everybody to go down the river and keep it all good, and then all of a sudden they get the monument and they've taken in way more land than they needed."

The Antiquities Act allows the president to reserve land not owned by the federal government within the boundaries of a monument to become part of the monument if the owner sells the land to the government. That is what President Bill Clinton did with the 80,000 acres of private land and 40,000 acres of state land when he created the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in 2001.

Many private pilots had expressed concern about changes to their access to the Breaks.

Long-time Havre pilot and co-owner of MRKT Aviation Fuels Roger Lincoln said the Federal Aviation Administration issued advisories and requests that pilots stay 2,000 feet off the highest point. This is standard for national parks and federal wildlife refuges. But FAA personnel told him that no enforceable laws prohibit closer flight other than the general rule to stay 500 feet off rural the ground in rural areas and not harass people and animals from the air.

The monument also has six airstrips reserved to be active, he said.

Proponents of the monument point out that nothing has changed for landowners and their rights on their own property, and no changes have come to water rights. But opponents argue that the wording in the documents are too vague, leaving room for interpretations and regulation changes that will hurt landowners in the future.

Monument status wording says its water rights are, "a quantity of water ... sufficient to fulfill the purposes for which this monument is established."

A more specific quantity of water was supposed to be established after the monument was in place, but if any numbers have been agreed on, including the water pumped from the river for the young trees, it would be a surprise to him, Ed Allderdice said.

Still, the Allderdices, who attended the public hearings before the monument was signed into being, admit that their life hasn't changed much living now within the monument.

"We're still doing what we always did," Clare Allderdice said.

This includes running about 250 head or more of cattle, pivot irrigating some alfalfa fields and giving people permission to hunt and fish on their property, Ed Allderdice said, including giving the Friends and their volunteers permission to access their tree planting site through their ranch.

On the second tree planting weekend, volunteers caravaned across the Allderdices' ranch to the Little Sandy Creek site, after their overnight stay at Coal Banks Landing.

April 1, 18 volunteers planted 70 trees at Little Sandy Creek, making the total number of cottonwoods planted by the Friends group sits at 520 over th last five years. The trees are maintained weekly and they have thus far had a 90 percent success rate with the saplings, Dwyer said.

While the Friends of the Breaks is working to restore the cottonwood habitat to its historical growth, the Allderdices are working to maintain their own family history.

Clare Allderdice's grandfather originally purchased their 3,600-acre ranch in 1942, her husband said, along with a significant amount of other acreage that stretched farther along the Missouri and north almost to Big Sandy. He divided the property into parcels to give to his children and those tracts have been passed along or sold over the years, much of it divided up.

They said, most likely, their son Russ, who already runs some cows on the place, will one day take over the ranch, which they have already incorporated. Along with the ranch and the corporation their son will inherit easements for campgrounds and for access to tree planting sites and the tepee rings on the bluff overlooking the river, as well as any changes to the monument regulations.

The only significant change they have noticed so far is that with the development of monument campgrounds they have had fewer people camping along their banks.

"We get along with the people going down the river and everything fine," Clare Allderdice said.

Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument is more than just a monument, including:

• 149-mile Upper Missouri River National Wild and Scenic River

• Adjacent Breaks country

• Portions of Arrow Creek, Antelope Creek and Judith River.

• Six wilderness study areas

• Cow Creek Area of Critical Environmental Concern

• Segments of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail and the Nez Perce National Historic Trail

• Fort Benton National Historic Landmark

• A watchable wildlife area

• Six airstrips

• Missouri Breaks Back Country Byway

• About 40,000 acres of state land and about 80,000 acres of private land

• A total of about 75,000 acres in six separate areas within the monument borders have been evaluated for wilderness designation. Four of those areas were not recommended for wilderness status because they did not meet the criteria for remote, relatively untouched landscape. Those four sites were also described as having high potential for natural gas development.

 

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