
Land Board okays conservation easement if mining ensured
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) The state land board approved a large conservation easement on timberland in northwest Montana with the condition that language be added to ensure mining could occur, should any minerals be found.
On Monday morning, the Montana Land Board approved by a 3-2 vote a conservation easement that would permanently protect almost 33,000 acres of former Weyerhaeuser land in the Cabinet and Salish Mountains west of Kalispell.
The conservation easement is Phase 1 of the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement Project, which has already been five years in the making, said Dick Dolan, Trust for Public Lands Northern Rockies director. It started in early 2020 after the Weyerhaeuser Company announced it was selling 630,000 acres of Montana timberland to Southern Pine Plantation.
In January 2021, Green Diamond Resources Company of Washington state bought almost half of that land from Southern Pine Plantation and worked with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Trust for Public Land to create the easement. After the FWP commission approved the easement in August, land board approval was needed to make the first phase a reality because $1.5 million out of the Habitat Montana fund was paying part of the $39.5 million price tag.
“This is an investment in the future of Montana’s timber economy. I don’t think it’s overblown to say this is a tipping point,” Dolan said. “Having worked with these companies for 10 years, it is critical that we find a way to keep these lands producing timber for the future. We know what the alternative is. I think the broad range of support you’re hearing is the citizens of Montana saying we want the timber industry to survive.”
Three of the eight people who spoke in favor of the easement were timber company managers representing Green Diamond, Stimson Lumber and FH Stoltze Land and Timber Company. All agreed with Dolan that keeping the land for timber production was more important for Montana’s economy than subdividing the area for trophy homes.
“I’ve been personally associated with these lands for over five decades, so I’ve seen this large private timberland landscape dwindle down to what’s left now,” said Stimson representative Barry Dexter. “So we’re truly at a critical point where we can try to preserve what’s left. Or we can allow it to be developed. That’s what this conservation easement will do - it helps maintain the status quo of those lands.”
Twenty sportsmen’s groups sent a letter of support, in addition to the county commissions of Lincoln, Flathead and Sanders counties. Former Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck said he didn’t really approve of conservation easements before he started digging deep into the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement Project.
“We found that solution would not only continue natural resource extraction - and we looked at both aspects, mining and timber - it would continue to give us a tax base, and it would continue to give us status-quo access on those lands,” Peck said. “As we researched it, it was kind of a no-brainer.”
The only opponent to speak Monday was Peter Scott, attorney for Citizens for Balanced Use and WRH Nevada Properties, which owns mineral rights beneath the Green Diamond property. Scott said he didn’t think a conservation easement would ever allow mining because mining goes against the concept of “conservation.”
But Montana law says that mineral rights owners “have the right to reasonable use of the surface, regardless of whether or not the surface owner grants permission,” according to a Montana Environmental Quality Council brochure. FWP attorney Alan Daniel Zackheim said WRH would have the same rights and would still have to work with Green Diamond on access regardless of whether or not the easement is approved.
Citizens for Balanced Use has sued FWP, the FWP commission, the Trust for Public Lands and Green Diamond to stop the easement and tried to get an injunction to stop the land board vote. But Lincoln County District judge Matthew Cuffe denied the injunction, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t shown that they’d be harmed because "nothing prevents Plaintiffs from capitalizing on their mining interests.”
When Citizens for Balanced Use appealed and asked the Montana Supreme Court to step in early, the justices refused on Oct. 18, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t given a legal reason.
Governor Greg Gianforte said he supported the easement and didn’t think it was necessary to wait for the lawsuit to run its course, which could take more than a year. But other board members had reservations.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen said he didn’t like any easement that was permanent so he wouldn’t support it. But he added that he'd read Cuffe's order and found it adequately addressed any issues related to mineral rights.
"I also understand if this easement doesn't happen, Green Diamond could possibly deny public access. And possibly develop the property. So there are a lot of concerns there," Knudsen said.
Secretary of State Kristi Jacobson proposed an amendment to specify that the conservation easement not limit mineral development, which passed unanimously.
“If it is our intent to not diminish the mineral owners’ rights, then I think we need to make this more explicit in the terms of this easement and also for the record here today,” Jacobson said. “I would like to amend the motion to have our votes conditional on it.”
School Superintendent Elsie Arntzen was concerned there’d be strings attached to the $20 million in Forest Legacy Program funding from the U.S. Forest Service. She added that the situation regarding mineral rights was too complex to vote on without more information and she didn’t want to vote when she didn’t know what new language would say.
Zackheim said the only requirement of Forest Legacy projects was that the lands remain as working timberlands and the Forest Service wouldn’t be part of any discussion of mining.
Also, the funding needs to be used by December 2025. When Arntzen asked for more clarification, Gianforte pushed for approval, saying the board could make the approval conditional based on what the language ended up being. The easement was approved with Knudsen and Arntzen voting no.
“I think there’s been a lot of work put into this. I would like to be on record supporting this easement with the condition that we’ve added through the amendment. And we’ll have another bite at the apple at a future meeting if we can get language we like or don’t like,” Gianforte said.
Gianforte told FWP director Dustin Temple to work with the appropriate parties to insert the new language, preferably by the next Land Board meeting in a month.
This easement is only Phase 1. The original plan was to put a conservation easement on almost 86,000 acres of Green Diamond property extending north and south of the Thompson Chain of Lakes along U.S. Highway 2. But FWP couldn’t raise the money to pay for an area twice as large. Phase 2 is still in limbo.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.