MISSOULA — Montanans take pride in their rivers, some of which are still the wild waters that provide havens for fish and wildlife.
But others are being overused and loved to death, particularly this year when drought has robbed streams of their normal amount of water.
The question of how to regulate increasing recreation on streams is a thorny one that Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) has struggled with for years, but another study group has been created to seek some answers.
Next week, FWP will host the first of three online workshops for the public to share their thoughts on trends and challenges with river recreation throughout the state. The workshops will be 6-7:30 on Tuesday and Thursday evenings with the last on the following Monday.
A newly formed River Recreation Advisory Council will use the information from the workshops as a starting point to develop possible options for managing river recreation. The department accepted applications for those wanting to sit on the council until Aug. 2, but the council members have yet to be announced.
The main work of the advisory council will occur on Oct. 16-18 when the council members will meet to workshop some recommendations. The FWP announcement said the council aims to “help create a fair and predictable system for managing river recreation.”
Clayton Elliott, Montana Trout Unlimited conservation and government affairs director, said some Trout Unlimited chapter members might have applied to be on the council, but that the department hoped to get some average river users who might bring ideas that differ from those hashed out in other river recreation councils, such as with the Madison River.
“You want to think creatively and get new ideas on the table - bring in people who’ve not been in the middle of all this,” Elliott said. “It seems like the advisory council will be an ad-hoc, short-term thing, kind of like the (Montana Environmental Quality Act) thing (the Department of Environmental Quality) did. It will be a facilitated decision-making process, which could be interesting. The goal that has been explained to me is not to draft legislation, not to draft (administrative rules). It’s to come up with a portfolio of ideas and concepts to be explored.”
As recently as two to three decades ago, the pressure on Montana’s rivers wasn’t high enough to need much regulation. There was still sufficient room at fishing access sites and the word “hatch” — referring to a swarm of newly hatched aquatic insects - hadn’t been applied to the clusters of tubes and rafts that bob down some sections of river today.
But over time, as more people have moved to Montana, particularly during and after the pandemic, the boat traffic on more popular rivers is starting to resemble West Coast city freeways. The cars parked at access sites can extend up to a mile down the road, river vegetation is trampled, and fist-fights aren’t uncommon as people jostle for room. The masses who want to just float the river blame fishing outfitters and vice versa.
It’s evident to all that something must be done, but FWP has dragged its feet. The one success occurred on the upper Bitterroot River, where the FWP commission passed rules in December 2017 to limit recreational and commercial use. The rules were based on recommendations of a citizens advisory group composed of outfitters and other users but it was a hard-fought process.
Since then, there have been efforts to get similar limits on the Madison and Blackfoot rivers, but both have fizzled.
Starting in 2018, debates between different user groups on the Madison River became increasingly heated. Three groups sent petitions to the FWP commissionin late 2019 suggesting various permit systems, but the commission rejected them, sending the various options out to public comment.
A year later, the FWP commission voted to create a working group, which convened In fall 2021, headed by FWP Commissioner KC Walsh, owner of Simms Fishing. In May 2022, the group produced some recommendations, but nothing ever came of them.
“It stalled out at the commission level,” Elliott said. “I think a lot of the inertia was in response to the noncommercial side in terms of how you would deal with that. And then a feeling by the commercial users that ‘if you’re not going to tackle non-commercial, it’s not totally fair for us to be under pressure to ramp down.’ There were a number of threads that were happening.”Elliott said that led to a bill in the 2023 Legislature to have legislators do a study of the Madison River issue. But Elliott advocated against it since it probably wouldn’t produce anything new. The bill died without a sponsor to introduce it.
“There have been multiple entities who have pretty much exhausted all ways to cut the cake. What is missing is not some bright idea of how to cut the cake; it’s somebody with enough executive leadership to actually put the knife to the cake,” Elliott said.
Efforts to come up with ideas to regulate use on the Blackfoot River have been a little less contentious but no more effective. The Blackfoot River Plan was developed in 2010, but rapid population growth has made it antiquated.
For example, FWP counts showed user numbers jumped between 2019 and 2020 an average of 37% at four fishing access sites in the Blackfoot Recreational Corridor.
In late 2022, FWP started meeting with fishing guides, river enthusiasts and members of the Blackfoot Challenge to more seriously explore options of what could be done, such as limiting the size of float parties.
Outfitters were open to limited regulation. But everyone had seen the FWP commission thwart efforts to regulate the Madison River, so they were skeptical that anything they put forward could pass the commission.
The lack of FWP leadership has caused the Blackfoot effort to languish. The Blackfoot Challenge assumed leadership of the effort, but the organization has a slightly different focus, said Blackfoot angler Jerry O’Connell.
“It’s transformed from an effort to address the increasing traffic into one promoting a number of Blackfoot Challenge projects to get grants and contributions. But (addressing recreation) has dropped off their list of things to do,” O’Connell said. “They said one project would study recreation issues over the next three to five years, but we’ve been studying the recreation issues for the past 25. We’d like to do something instead of continuing this ongoing study.”
O’Connell and others want to begin work on a permitting system or a system like the Bitterroot River group set up. The Blackfoot Water committee will meet again sometime in the fall but O’Connell is frustrated with the lack of action.
“FWP seems to have washed their hands of having anything to do with this, other than having an observer at the meeting,” O’Connell said. “So much of the (Region 2) FWP management team has left. New people are in, and the new people are unfamiliar to varying degrees with the issues of the Blackfoot River.”
Requests for information were sent to the Blackfoot Challenge but no response was returned by press time. Clancy Jandreau, Blackfoot Challenge Water Steward, just had a baby and was out on leave.
Considering the clashes and impotence that have accompanied efforts to regulate various rivers, FWP’s River Recreation Advisory Council will be hard-pressed to produce effective solutions. But those wanting to participate in next week’s workshops should register on the FWP council webpage. Otherwise, the workshops will also be streamed on the FWP YouTube page.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
