Plum Creek may swap popular Blackfoot River land for Garnet timber

By Sherry Devlin of the Missoulian June 6, 1996

Ten miles of the lower Blackfoot River will be ours -- public ground -- if the U.S. Bureau of Land Management succeeds this summer in negotiating a land exchange and purchase with Plum Creek Timber Co.

Talks are focusing on the segment of river from Johnsrud Park to Ninemile Prarie, land solidly in Plum Creek ownership from ridgetop to ridgetop on either side of the Blackfoot River recreation corridor.

"The recreation values are considerable," said Jim Ledger, real estate specialist for the BLM in Missoula. "It's floating, it's fishing, it's people picnicking, it's hunting, it's camping along the river. It's the whole range of recreation opportunities."

The land, about 1,800 acres, was part of Plum Creek's November 1993 purchase of 1.7 million acres of Champion International Corp. timberland in western Montana. The BLM had, in fact, talked to Champion about the same land swap.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has for years managed the river corridor under an agreement with Champion, then Plum Creek. FWP does the crowd control. In return, the public gets access a little above the normally allowed high-water mark.

Soon after buying the Champion land, Plum Creek undertook a review of all of hits holdings, intent on designating those whose "highest and best use is not as commercial timberland," said company spokeswoman Kris Backes.

The Blackfoot corridor is one such property.

"Our first priority is to get the Blackfoot into public ownership." Backes said. "It is such and important place. We know its importance to the public. This is a good place, we believe, to try to get some of our land into public ownership, the Blackfoot as much as anywhere"

Ledger said he hopes for a shaking of hands and a specific proposal sometime this summer.

As now envisioned, the proposal would include public ownership of the Blackfoot corridor and another 616 acres of wetlands at the north end of Salmon Lake. That parcel includes a very small portion of lake frontage, but also the Clearwater River as it meanders down and into the lake.

"Again, that is an area where we had discussions with Champion and are continuing to talk with Plum Creek." Ledger said.

As its part of the deal, the BLM likely will offer timbered land in the "extreme west Garnets" Ledger said. Much of that land was designated a "non-retention zone" in the agency's land-use plan and has little or no public access.

The property is in Missoula County and runs from Bearmouth north and then back towards Clinton. There also are scattered parcels in Granite and Powell counties.

Any formal proposal, though, will be presented to the public in detail, with time for public comment and preparation of a formal environmental assessment, Ledger said.

"We'll want the input: Is what we're giving up worth what we are getting, not so much the dollar value - that's a given that dollar values have to be equal, but equal in resource values," he said.

The U.S. Department of interior has asked for $400,000 from the congressional Land and Water Conservation Fund to help finance the exchange. The money would pay for any shortage in the land-for-land trade and for the required appraisals, environmental reviews and inventories. Sweet deal?