A new survey finds strong support in Montana for conservation and public lands, including a measure in Congress to protect more forest land.

In the 2022 Voter Survey on Public Lands, 85% of Montanans say the loss of ranches and open spaces to new development is a serious problem. And 83% also support the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act, which would add nearly 80,000 acres of public land to the state.

Kristin Cordingley, program director of the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund, said groups have been working on this effort for a long time.

"It's a really collaborative effort," said Cordingley. "I mean, we've included timber mill workers. We got ranchers, outfitters, conservationists, mountain bike riders, business owners. The list kind of goes on and on and it essentially protects the Blackfoot River and some of its most important tributaries."

Support for the legislation is up from 75% in the 2020 survey. It was introduced by Sen. Jon Tester - D-Mont - but Sen. Steve Daines - R-Mont - says he will only support the bill if it's tied to his effort to loosen protections on some lands in the state managed as wilderness.

The survey was commissioned by the University of Montana's Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative.

The Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund is among the groups doing everything they can to see the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act get a vote in Congress, including heading to the bar.

The group recently partnered with Gulch Distillers in Helena on a vodka label urging Daines to let the Senate vote on the bill. Cordingly said she hopes there's movement on it soon.

"As we get closer to the election and there's so many other things on the docket, we are nervous and we want to see it move before the end of the year, for sure," said Cordingley. "Folks have been working a really long time on it. This coalition that pulled together this piece of legislation has been working on it over a decade."

The bill is in the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, on which Daines sits.

New research by ecology experts in Montana showed even small amounts of development can cause a widespread decline in stream biodiversity.

It does not take a new high-rise, bridge construction or freeway to have major effects on Montana's sensitive river and stream ecosystem.

Michael Sprague, founder and CEO of Livingston-based Trout Headwaters, said even small projects affecting less than 2% of a developed watershed cause significant loss of biodiversity in sensitive areas, and is especially harmful to aquatic life. It is evident in a number of ways.

"Diminishing vegetation, or peeling off topsoil or allowing excess erosion to occur on a site or some of these other things," Sprague explained.

Sprague added there are more chemicals winding up in rivers and streams now, too, which is also having a negative impact on waterway ecology.

Sprague argued even small roads and trails can have a major effect on biodiversity in Montana's waterways, often because roads are the first sign of development in ecologically sensitive areas.

"First of all, how is the road constructed? Is it stable? Is it eroding?," Sprague outlined. "Maybe you bisected a travel corridor for a species. Maybe you ran through some critical habitat or pushed that species off as a result of the road. Maybe that human access now by itself is causing migration."

Road building and development on environmentally sensitive lands remains an issue across the Plains states, where the ecology of rivers and streams is threatened, including on American Indian reservations.

The arrival of fall has farmers transitioning to the harvest season, but what if some gathered their crops with rows of solar panels right alongside them?

Minnesota is part of such emerging projects. The agrivoltaics scene is carving out pathways for utilities and developers to reduce carbon emissions by adding more solar farms, while allowing emerging farmers, who face land-access issues, to grow fruits and vegetables on the same property.

Brian Ross, vice president of renewable energy for the Great Plains Institute, said it is a great example of two worlds working to benefit each other.

"We're all working together to kind of take that example of local food production and try to expand it out. How can we actually put this at scale?" Ross asked. "How can we do it within the context of existing solar-development parameters?"

As they track the effectiveness of smaller projects, Ross noted they need to figure out certain logistics, such as the ideal height of the solar panels. Other partners say irrigation is another puzzle to solve. The Minnesota project involves the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Connexus Energy, U.S. Solar and Big River Farms. On a solar site just outside the Twin Cities, aspiring farmers are testing adding horticultural vegetation.

Sophia Lenarz-Coy, executive director of The Food Group and Big River Farms, said the pilot initiative can especially help historically disadvantaged farmers.

"Farmers of color, women farmers, folks who have a harder time accessing capital," Lenarz-Coy pointed out. "This is one of the biggest barriers that we see is wanting long-term land access but maybe not having the capital to purchase land."

She added farmers often end up signing leases for property but it makes it harder to grow their operations under short-term contracts. The solar site provides hope in establishing more certainty for producers and the vision they have for their food-growing venture.

Project leaders say another thing they hope to learn is the difference between crops grown underneath and around solar arrays versus crops grown in the open.


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A new report finds more than half of the sewage facilities in Idaho had pollution violations in 2022.

The sixth annual analysis by the Idaho Conservation League says 57% of the state's wastewater treatment plants discharged harmful substances last year.

Will Tiedemann, conservation associate with the Idaho Conservation League, said the report focuses on facilities that had the potential to cause the most harm - such as those releasing wastewater in sensitive habitats.

He said size has had an impact on those violations in recent years.

"There's quite a few facilities that are a little smaller and they do deal with outdated equipment," said Tiedemann, "either failed, you know, or were built 20, 30, 40 years ago."

Collectively, there were 520 violations of the Clean Water Act by Idaho wastewater treatment plants in 2022. The report focuses on three facilities that accounted for a quarter of the violations in Driggs, Jerome and Kuna.

Tiedemann noted that there are some positives in this report. Facilities in 51 cities and towns reported no discharge violations.

Others made significant improvements from 2021 to 2022 - including those in Blackfoot, Marsing and Wilder.

"This isn't an insurmountable issue," said Tiedemann, "that numerous examples of facilities who have dealt with issues and have made the investments and put in the resources and the time and the hard work to address this issue. So we definitely commend those facilities."

Tiedemann said having the means to curtail violations can be a major issue, especially for smaller towns. But he said federal resources are available, including through COVID-19 relief funds.