The Flathead National Forest is now taking comments on how it should manage the three forks of the Flathead River. The plan, expected early next year, could implement user restrictions to protect fish, wildlife and the user experience.
The U.S. Forest Service announced Wednesday it is taking scoping comments that will help shape the new management plan.
The forthcoming plan dictates how users recreate on the Flathead River. Managers also released proposals that would change how they would react if user capacities were exceeded on different sections of the river.
“At this point, we’re just identifying ranges of actions, and some of them that we listed, for example, could be group size limits, " said Flathead National Forest Recreation Program Manager Chris Prew. "Could be a restricted permit system, it could be seasonal restrictions, it could be launch restrictions.”
Those actions would only be triggered if capacity thresholds set by the new plan were reached. Those thresholds can vary on each section of the river, and depend on whether it is managed for recreation or scenic values.
Prew said capacity limits aren’t new, but that the proposed management responses are more “hard and fast” than what’s in the current plan.
“We’re proposing monitoring indicators and thresholds that have triggers that will solicit specific management actions," he said. "So we’re not saying that these are the exact things we’d do, but these are the range of actions we could take, and then we’re trying to identify the rationale for which we think that’s important.”
Two listening sessions are scheduled on Aug. 13 and 20, 6- 8 p.m., at the Flathead Community College. Comments will be accepted through Sept. 13.
Correction: A previous version incorrectly stated the date for the second listening session. It's on Aug. 20 at the Flathead Community College.
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