Letter to the Editor, by Mark Good
Lewistown News-Argus - September 12, 2001

Good of the public must be center stage

Dear Editor,

Opponents of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument claim that their concerns were not addressed in the nearly two-year public process leading up to the designation.

Nonsense!

Ranchers and other commercial users of public lands in the Breaks were on equal, if not better, footing than every other user involved in the public process. Their interests were represented by a majority of members on the BLM Resource Advisory Council and they testified at all of the public hearings.

Importantly, all sides agreed that the designation would apply only to BLM land, existing access to private inholdings would be preserved, valid existing gas leases and water rights would be honored and livestock grazing would continue to be managed under the same standards, laws and subsidized rates as the surrounding BLM lands.

But that wasn't good enough. The opponents seem to believe they should be the primary voice or the only voice in determining how public lands are managed. The governor's task force which included only opponents of the existing monument, made a mockery of the public process by discounting the vast majority of public comments in support of the existing monument.

A "local" county commissioner went so far as to propose that the public be excluded from decisions regarding livestock grazing on public land. Monument opponents overlook the point that BLM land is owned by all Montanans and all Americans and is to be managed for the good of the public, not just for the profit of a few.

Mark Good
Great Falls