Watching the River Flow:
From Conflict to Cooperation
in the Big Hole River Watershed

Pat Munday, Ph.D.
Department of Technical Communication

Pat Munday is currently conducting research on a book about the Big Hole River watershed and its people. The book, Montana’s Last Best River: The Big Hole and its People, includes elements of the watershed’s ethnography, rural sociology, oral history, and public policy. The project is sponsored by The Big Hole River Foundation. The following article represents a portion of Dr. Munday’s research.

The Big Hole River flows 150 miles from the mountains above the town of Jackson to its confluence with the Beaverhead and Ruby Rivers on the sagebrush prairie at Twin Bridges. It’s a vast watershed of 2,500 square miles, yet home to just 2,000 people. It’s a land of family ranches and outdoor recreation, providing fine beef and superb trout fishing.

Humans have long inhabited the Big Hole landscape. The first white men to visit the Big Hole were Lewis and Clark. Then, as now, the Big Hole was rich in wildlife, but despite the lure of beaver, white trappers avoided the Big Hole because Blackfeet Indians fiercely defended their hunting and trapping grounds. Beginning in 1855, a series of treaties reduced Indian tribal lands, ended the Indians’ semi-nomadic way of life, and moved them from traditional homelands to reservations. By the mid-nineteenth century, miners came to the Big Hole seeking their fortune; however, they did not last long.

Long-term survival and sustainability ultimately hinged on ranching. Ranchers began homesteading the Big Hole in the 1860s, and ranching provided a real and lasting opportunity for settlers. Today, many fourth- and fifth-generation ranchers, descendants of the original homesteaders, occupy the Big Hole. In addition to ranchers, anglers and other recreationists discovered the Big Hole to be a fine place. Vacationing anglers and hunters, such as Teddy Roosevelt, began visiting the Big Hole about the same time as it was homesteaded.

Conflict

After World War II, several developments occurred that brought recreationists, ranchers, and public land managers into conflict. The GI Bill spurred a housing boom fueled by exponential growth in timber harvests. Industry turned from the manufacture of tanks and other war material to the manufacture of log skidders, bulldozers, and chainsaws, and clear-cutting became the logging method of choice. Demand for timber pushed the U.S. Forest Service to sell increasingly marginal timber reserves.

At the same time, ranchers began to build diversion dams and dig ditches with heavy equipment, instead of with picks, shovels, and horses. Tributary streams were often completely dewatered in their lower reaches, and even the mighty Big Hole ran dry in drought years.

These threats to natural resources spurred development of a conservation movement. Conservationists worked to understand the role of habitat and wished to bequeath future generations a high-quality environmental legacy. To achieve this goal, groups such as Trout Unlimited, the Montana Wildlife Federation, and the Wilderness Society became active in the 1970s. These grassroots organizations focused on local problems.

Numerous individuals stepped forward in the Butte area to lead these groups. Leaders such as George Grant, Al Luebeck, and Tony Schoonen knew that we were on the verge of losing Montana, the last best place. Initially, their efforts were adversarial. Angry public meetings, mass mailings to politicians, court injunctions, litigation, and legislation were the blunt instruments of choice. Ranchers, conservationists, and other groups often became polarized, caught up in a tug-of-war that no one could win.

The New Era of Cooperation

Gradually, a surprising shift occurred. Stalemate over traditional ideologies gave way to cooperation over shared interests. Ranchers and conservationists, in particular, realized they often shared a common goal, especially in the Big Hole. Both wanted to leave their children a world at least as good as what they had inherited.

Several key events encouraged cooperation between ranchers and conservation groups and helped bring former adversaries together: the Bureau of Land Reclamation proposal for a large water storage reservoir, Forest Service plans for large-scale clear-cutting and road building, and a petition to the National Fisheries and Wildlife Service to list grayling as an endangered species.

The Reichle Dam, first proposed in 1965 and then again in 1975, would have flooded 10 miles of the Big Hole valley at a cost of $80 million. The project would have provided irrigation water to downstream users in Broadwater, Jefferson, and Madison Counties. It would also, however, have ruined the Big Hole’s best trout habitat, dammed one of America’s last free-flowing rivers, and inundated thousands of acres of prime ranchland. The cost to local ranchers, anglers, and conservationists was simply too high, and they joined efforts to encourage Montana’s Senators Mansfield and Metcalf to kill the project.

In 1980, the Beaverhead National Forest announced plans to build more than 2,000 miles of roads and increase the yearly timber harvest to more than 24 million board feet. Much of this development was planned for the upper Big Hole, a relatively pristine and roadless area. Furthermore, economic analyses showed that the federal government lost $1,091 per acre on timber sales in the upper Big Hole.

Local conservationists Luebeck, Schoonen, and Grant were appalled. They believed logging and road building on this scale would cause large amounts of sediment to cover fish spawning habitat, increase spring runoff while exacerbating summer drought conditions and reducing elk habitat. The Forest Service plan would forever change the face of the upper Big Hole. As a strategy to halt this plan, conservationists began working on a proposal to designate more than 200,000 acres of the upper Big Hole as a Wilderness Area.

Initially, ranchers instinctively trusted the Forest Service, wanted local lumber mills to receive all the timber they wanted, and did not want to see the forest locked up as wilderness. At a March 12, 1980, meeting of the Beaverhead Chamber of Commerce, prominent rancher Jack Hirschey stated: “Everybody knows we’re against wilderness. Isn’t that why we’re here?”  Briefly, ranchers even formed an anti-wilderness group.

Several years later, Hirschey woke to the sound of heavy equipment rumbling through the National Forest land behind his ranch. Tall plumes of blue smoke marked the progress of a new road being cut into the high timber. His experience matched that of his neighbors, and many came to a similar conclusion: the Forest Service plan had to go. In 1984, they formed a new group to conserve the wild and natural character of their home. Their new agenda even included some designated wilderness. As rancher Ralph Nichols said in a 1985 interview: “An awful lot of public opinion here is against this road building. A lot of ranchers don’t like the word wilderness, but they don’t want the development either. We want to see it left as it is.”

To halt large clear-cuts, curb extensive road building, and conserve the character of their home, ranchers resorted to lawsuits. In 1986 and 1987, claiming violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, they hired environmental lawyer James Goetz to sue the Forest Service. Support was widespread. As Hirschey said, “We [ranchers] woke up and saw what was happening on the east side [of the Big Hole] and that’s what really changed our minds.”  And his neighbor, Clayton Huntley added: “They [the Forest Service] spent $586,000 to build the road and all we got left is the damn clear-cut [on Steel Creek].”

Despite cooperation between the ranchers and conservationists in drafting a new wilderness bill, no new wilderness additions were made in the Big Hole. Much of the area’s forest is still in limbo as a wilderness study area. Though Montana’s congressmen helped push a Montana Wilderness Bill through the House and Senate, President Reagan vetoed it in 1988.

The efforts bore fruit, nonetheless. Beaverhead Forest managers announced a policy shift in 1986, beginning with a reduction in timber sales from 20.1 to 17.3 million board feet per year. The Forest Service began “clarifying its intent to protect wildlife, watershed, fisheries and recreational opportunities on the forest.”  Even these reduced timber harvest targets proved far too ambitious; the Beaverhead Forest was still losing money on every tree cut. The final blow came with President Bush’s 1990 budget. Conservative fiscal policy dictated that below-cost timber sales end. The Beaverhead Forest’s timber sales were reduced from 17.3 to approximately 4 million board feet per year, and still hover around this level.

The latest cooperative efforts revolve around drought, dewatering, and the continued survival of fluvial Arctic grayling. In the 1980s, grayling had become scarce in the Big Hole. A 1991 petition to list grayling as an endangered species could have resulted in a halt to recreational fishing on the Big Hole and seriously limited the private property rights of ranchers who depend on the river’s water to grow hay. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation considered designating the Big Hole a chronically dewatered stream, which would have required strict water measurement and allocation.

In response to these challenges, a Big Hole Watershed Committee was established in 1995 by ranchers and conservationists “to seek understanding of the river and agreement among individuals and groups with diverse viewpoints on water use and management in the Big Hole watershed.”   In just a few short years, the Watershed Committee achieved several landmark goals. Stakeholders—represented by ranching, conservation, business, and local government interests—meet monthly to work out differences, agree on goals, and institute needed changes. A stock-water well drilling program has resulted in reducing the need for diversions and maintaining critical water levels for grayling. A drought management plan ensures that neither agricultural diversions nor recreational fishing harm grayling. Hydrogeology studies are in progress to develop a model for the river and its aquifer.

Currently, the Watershed Committee is considering off-river water storage and a watershed conservation plan. Developing a small dam on a tributary stream would provide emergency water for critical grayling habitat during drought years. The conservation plan will provide local government with guidance for future development and develop tools for ranchers to remain competitive and maintain open space.

The Shoshone, the Blackfeet, Lewis and Clark, and other early visitors to the Big Hole would be surprised by the herds of cattle that have replaced buffalo, and by the haystacks and highways. Despite the presence of ranchers, anglers, and small towns, however, they would find much of the environment familiar. Elk, trout, and beaver are all still abundant. From Jackson to Twin Bridges, the Big Hole remains Montana’s Last Best River.