12 December 2018 — 0750 mst
Bob Keenan requests bill to repeal Flathead Basin Commission
Without the Flathead Basin Commission, there would be coal mines in the Canadian North Fork, and probably a lot less action on invasive species than there is today.
The FBC was created after the Flathead River Basin Environmental Impact Study Steering Committee, one of Max Baucus’s finest accomplishments, finished its work in the early 1980s. It provided a trans-jurisdictional perspective on environmental issues in the Flathead River Basin, and because it included citizen members, both a measure of local control and oversight of bureaucracies.
All that ended last year when the Bullock administration, using the excuse of budgetary exigencies, transferred the FBC’s funding to the DNRC. Shortly thereafter, the FBC’s executive director was fired. As the fallout settled, it became clear that the bureaucracy had succeeded in shutting down an organization it never liked, and ridding itself of an executive director who was considered too independent and prone to empire building.
Now it appears we’ll be without the FBC. On 11 December, Sen. Bob Keenan (R-Bigfork, SD-5) requested a bill, LC-2916, with the short title of “Repeal the Flathead basin commission [sic].”
There’s no replacement for the FBC. Back in July, the Flathead Beacon reported that several former members of the FBC started a private group, Watershed Protection Advocates:
Watershed Protection Advocates (WPA) is spearheaded by former members of the Flathead Basin Commission (FBC), who say the latter organization’s ability to effectively protect the region’s natural resources was undermined when its budget was gutted last year. The budget cuts led to acrimony among FBC members and state agencies the commission was crafted to “watchdog.”
The changes included the eventual termination of former FBC director Caryn Miske, previously the commission’s sole paid employee who is now a key leadership role in the WPA efforts. The changes also led to the departure of Jan Metzmaker as chair of the FBC, and she is now serving as chair of the WPA.
The group may still exist, and it may have a website, but I couldn’t find a website for it this morning.
A private group has more flexibility than the FBC, but not the formal authorities and status of the FBC. Whether the non-New Deal WPA will be anything except a provider of a job for Miske remains to be seen.
There’s also the Upper Columbia Conservation Commission, established by the 2017 legislature as an arm of the DNRC to handle invasive species — the issue that mortally wounded the FBC and led to the firing of Miske. It has citizen members, but in my opinion they exist so that the DNRC can claim it has local support. It does not, insofar as I can determine, have Canadian members. The FBC did, and that was critical to the FBC’s effectiveness.
Bob Keenan has been an enthusiastic and effective advocate for Flathead Lake and clean water. It’s a pity he’s volunteered to apply the executioner’s axe to the FBC’s neck.