Great Falls Tribune - Thursday, August 16, 2001
Monument allies claim task force had its mind set before it started,
by Sonja Lee, Tribune Staff Writer

Friends of the Missouri Breaks Monument are outraged that a task force appointed by the governor to study the monument ignored written comments when it made its preliminary recommendation to shrink the monument boundaries, and is asking the recommendation be thrown out.

"A task force that has its mind made up before it starts makes a mockery of the process," said Hugo Tureck, chairman of the Bureau of Land Management's Central Resource Advisory Council, which worked with the public for two years on the monument.

He made his remarks Wednesday in Great Falls at a news conference called by monument supporters.

The task force, appointed by Gov. Judy Martz, Tuesday proposed pulling all private and some public land, including wilderness study areas, from the 377,000-acre monument, essentially returning it to the boundaries of the Wild and Scenic Missouri River Corridor.

The boundaries of the monument encompass 497,000 acres, which includes 81,000 acres of private land and 39,000 acres of state land that do not actually have monument status.

According to a July 13 news release from Martz's office, task force deliberations would be based solely on written comments submitted to the group.

In addition to holding three public hearings, the board received 1,700 written comments. According to the governor's office, about 1,100 were in support of the monument and 600 were in opposition.

"There were 1,700 written comments that were 2 to 1 in support of the monument," said Wendy Whitehorn, a member of Friends of the Monument.

Task force members did not read all of the 1,700 before forming their recommendation. At the beginning of Tuesday's meeting, Todd O'Hair, Martz's natural resource policy adviser, told members the letters were mostly statements of support or opposition, but did not contain a great deal of substantive comments on the topics of boundaries, tourism and recreation.

Some of the letters from organizations like the Montana Stockgrowers Association and Montana Wilderness Association did include some detailed comments, he said.

The task force spent the first hour of the meeting reading those letters. Initially, members said the cost of making a 11,900 copies -- one for each member -- was extreme, but by the close of the they decided they should look at copies of all the letters.

Blaine County Commissioner Art Kleinjan, chairman of the task force, said he intends to read the letters before the Tuesday meeting.

He added that the task force is operating under a tight time frame -- Martz wants to forward a report on the monument to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton by Sept. 1.

"We had to go ahead and get some of the work done," he said. Monument supporters counter that the task force has blatantly broken its own rules, and its recommendation should be thrown out.

"The fact that Art Kleinjan admits they have not read the letters yet but have come out with a draft recommendation proves our point," said Dennis Tighe, president of the Friends of the Monument. "That means this process should be terminated. There was no intent that it be fair."

Tighe said the group will press for a fair process and ask Martz to declare the task force recommendations illegitimate. He said if they have to move the debate to Congress, they will.

O'Hair said task force members will be given copies of all the letters to read.

"It was made pretty clear to me that the task force was going to review the comments and make the changes necessary," O'Hair said. "We have to see what the final report is. This was all just draft and discussion." Kleinjan also stressed that the recommendations were preliminary and will be reviewed Tuesday in Havre.

Friends of the Monument have other problems with the process, such as holding the public comment-gathering meetings in the mornings, during times that were inconvenient for people who worked 9 to 5 jobs. As a result, area ranchers who opposed the monument dominated the three public meetings, they said.

Kleinjan also disagrees with another of the groups' accusations, that the task force is stacked with monument foes.

"I stated publicly time after time that I was going to try to be fair," he said.

But Friends of the Monument see the process as far from fair.

"For sportsmen, this represents a kangaroo court and is a waste of taxpayer money," said Craig Sharpe, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation, a hunting and angling association.