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Land and Water Conservation FundPermanent Funding ProposedSen, Baucus has signed on to sponsor a bill which would make funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent. The guest editorial below spells out why Montanans should fully support this measure. It is important for preserving permanent access to public lands. The Senate bill is S2747 sponsored by Sen Jeff Bingaman. It is included in a provision of HR3434 sponsored by Nick Rahall. Fund land conservation for recreation, economy GARY BERLIN | Posted: Saturday, December 5, 2009 12:00 am Billings Gazette Many of us have been afield this fall spending time in our favorite hunting and fishing spots. We enjoy the tradition of these field sports so important to our lives. Those who head out to the fields, rivers and streams should know about an important tool for conservation of those areas we find near and dear to our hearts. Congress has a unique opportunity to secure full and dedicated funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the principal source of federal dollars for protecting land in America’s national parks, forests, and other public landscapes and ensuring recreational opportunities for Americans in every state in the nation. Since 1977, this fund has been authorized at $900 million per year. Most of the funds come from off-shore oil and gas leases, and are to be used for the purchase (from willing sellers) of land with outstanding natural, recreational, scenic and other attributes, and for the development of outdoor recreation lands and facilities at the state and local level. In Montana, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been used to create fishing access on the Madison River at Three Dollar Bridge and to protect fish and wildlife habitat and increase recreational opportunities across the state. The fund has been chronically underfunded, leaving a huge land protection and outdoor recreation backlog. Without timely and adequate funding, important opportunities to invest in the outdoors could be lost forever. The beauty of the fund is its unassailable logic: When the federal government gets funds from the sale of resources we all own, it should invest some portion of the proceeds from that sale into the dwindling, irreplaceable open spaces and recreational opportunities we all need. The outdoor recreation business is important to local communities surrounding national parks and other public lands. Local economies are made more vibrant and resilient by the natural and cultural amenities and the abundant recreational opportunities provided by parks and public lands. These amenities greatly enhance the quality of life in our communities, help large and small localities attract new residents and businesses and generate tourism-related jobs and revenues. Hunters and anglers know how important land conservation is to outdoor recreation. U.S. hunting and fishing has become an economic building block generating more than 1.6 million jobs and more than $2 billion annually in salaries, wages and business earnings. In 2006, more than $70 billion was generated in sportsmen-related retail sales. With the “ripple effect,” this translates to more than $190 billion in total economic activity. People need to know how much we care about this fund and the special places that it protects, such as parks, refuges, trails, cultural and historic places, public lands and other recreation areas in our community. Gary Berlin of Louisville, Colo., is president of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association, the sole trade organization for the fly-fishing industry.
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PLWA Sets Up Bridge / Stream Access Defense FundDang ! We have to ask for money again.
In Montana, water belongs to the publicThe recent Montana Supreme Court hearing in Bozeman contained the following claim by an attorney representing James Cox Kennedy in reference to the water in the Ruby River running through his ranch.His attorney claimed that the landowner not only owns the land under the river but the river itself as well as the air above the river.