New York Times - August 20, 2001
Debate Over a National Monument Emphasizes Old West-New West Divide, by Jim Robbins

LOMA, Mont., Aug. 14 -- On a treeless, sun-baked hill near here where two rivers flow together, the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark came to a critical decision in 1805: they would follow the Missouri River and not the Marias in their quest for the Northwest Passage. The call was the right one, for the Missouri led to the headwaters they sought.

Decision Point is just one of the sites included in a proclamation signed by President Bill Clinton in January that turned this rugged, sparsely settled region dotted with cattle and nuclear missile silos into the Missouri Breaks National Monument, one of several such monuments Mr. Clinton created at the end of his term.

Now, Montanans are squaring off over efforts to roll back Mr. Clinton's decision, which created the new Missouri Breaks National Monument around the 90,000-acre Wild and Scenic River corridor, which encompasses more than 495,000 acres, including 82,000 acres of private land.

The monument designation did not need Congressional approval, which many in the West see as an abuse of federal power. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, concerned that local residents did not have enough say in the process, has asked states to come up with ways to reduce the size of the monuments or relax restrictions. On Tuesday a committee appointed by Gov. Judy Martz, a Republican, voted to recommend that the federal government shrink the national monument to 90,000 acres.

Supporters of the new monument in Montana contend that Governor Martz stacked the committee with monument opponents.

"Committee members held proponents who testified in complete disdain," said Hugo Tureck, a rancher near Coffee Creek, outside the monument, and a director of a group called Friends of the Missouri Breaks. "It was very transparent."

This is a familiar battleground in the West, where the agriculture, mining and drilling of the Old West economy go up against the environmental enthusiasm of the New West economy, based on tourism, hunting and fishing.

And with the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 2004 expected to attract thousands of tourists, the monument is seen as "a golden goose that can lay eggs into perpetuity," said Marv Hoffer, a Lewistown city commissioner.

"This is one of the few areas in the country where you can experience the West as Lewis and Clark saw it," said Stephen E. Ambrose, the historian and author of "Undaunted Courage," a book about the expedition.

"It's the most pristine part of the Lewis and Clark Trail," said Mr. Ambrose, who is working to keep the present boundaries. "It is precious to all Americans and it needs to be protected."

Meriwether Lewis was especially taken with the breaks, which are jagged white, dun and red sandstone cliffs that have been sculptured by wind and water into strangely shaped spires and hoodoos. "As we passed on," Lewis wrote in his famous, and often misspelled, journal, "it seemed those seens of visionary inchantment would never have an end."

In a sign of how the battle lines have been drawn over the breaks, the city commission of Lewistown, the hub of central Montana's ranch country, voted 5 to 0 in July for a resolution to protect the Missouri Breaks "to the greatest extent possible."

David Byerly, the former publisher of The Lewistown News-Argus and a Fergus County school board member, said that in Lewistown, a town of 5,800, 135 children graduated this year. The class of 2013 will have 85 members. "The rural way of life is a precious thing," said Mr. Byerly, who supports the monument. "But if you look at the numbers out there they're scary. We might want to freeze it in 1950 here, but it's not going to happen. The monument won't replace agriculture, but it's a ray of hope and we should grab it."

But some ranchers are infuriated because, they say, too much private land was included in the monument boundary.

Matt Knox, a rancher near Winifred, Mont., and founder of a group called Missouri River Stewards, said the government had promised to acquire private land for the monument only on a "willing seller" basis.

"But if they want it bad enough, they can make us willing sellers by changing regulations and making things difficult," Mr. Knox said. "It's a scary process."

Craig Flentie, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management in Lewistown, said that while private lands lie within the boundaries of the monument, they would not be affected by monument regulations.

Monument status does not allow new leases for such uses as mining or oil and gas drilling, but allows existing uses, like ranching, to continue if they do not conflict with the goal of the momuent. The government is still working out details of its plan for the monument, with public participation.

There is a deep and abiding mistrust of the federal government in some communities in the West. At Tuesday's meeting ranchers posted a sign that said "U.S. Government, stop stealing private land," and a small boy carried a sign that read, "Don't let the feds take my daddy's farm." But despite some outbursts, the issue has simmered, not boiled.

Some argue that it is a mistake for ranchers, many of whom use cheap federal grazing land and receive crop support payments, to fight the designation.

"These ranchers are bringing the public to focus on the idea of subsidies, and we are cutting our own throat," said Mr. Tureck, who leases public land well below market cost, as do many in the breaks. "It makes the ranchers look extremely selfish. They don't want to share public lands with the public."