Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks released the final Statewide Grizzly Bear Management Plan Monday. It outlines how FWP plans to manage grizzly bears where they exist now and prioritizes connectivity between ecosystems and working with people and communities to avoid conflicts with bears. Its grizzly bear management will continue to center on conflict management research and monitoring and education and outreach.
Governor Greg Gianforte received the Behavioral Health System for Future Generations Commission’s final report Monday with recommendations to reform and improve Montana’s behavioral health and developmental disabilities services systems. They cover every aspect of the continuums of care address the Commission’s stated priorities incorporate input from a diverse range stakeholders and serve every population.
Three environmental groups are suing the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for approving an expansion for the Bull Mountain Mine between Roundup and Billings that would open up more land for coal mining. They say that would continue to damage water supplies for ranchers destroy cultural artifacts sacred to Native American tribes and contribute significantly to climate change.
Six members of the Fort Peck Reservation filed a lawsuit against state and county officials Monday saying they don’t have enough places to vote in person. It asks a state judge for an order forcing Valley and Roosevelt counties and Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen to create satellite election offices in Frazer and Poplar. The offices would be open during the same hours and on the same days as the county courthouses. The plaintiffs reside in two small communities near the Canada border on the Fort Peck Reservation home to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes.
Starting today the amount of benefits is increasing for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. People who are considered able-bodied adults without dependents from age 52 to 54 will have to prove they are working training or in school. Younger recipients already have to work at least 80 hours a month are going to school or are in training to get SNAP benefits for longer than three months. People who are exempt include veterans the homeless or young adults 18 to 24 who have aged out of foster care.
Under a measure before commissioners Butte-Silver Bow County could refuse to house Montana Department of Corrections inmates in its jail unless the state pays the full costs of doing so. The discretion would belong to the sheriff and jail commander. It currently has 14 inmates in the Butte jail.
Beartooth District Ranger Amy Haas has signed the Decision Memo for the Red Lodge Mountain Fuels Project on National Forest System Lands west of Red Lodge. 1,824 acres of commercial and noncommercial treatments are targeted to reduce tree densities and forest surface fuels. The project will begin next May.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has announced the Department’s Economic Development Administration is awarding a $4.6 million grant to Yellowstone County. The funds are for water and sewer infrastructure improvements to support business development and disaster resiliency in the region.
The Helena City Commission held a closed meeting last week to discuss strategy regarding a pending lawsuit against the city over levied assessments from 2011 to 2021. The mayor’s office told the Montana Free Press it would not reveal specifics although according to court records a settlement is apparently in the works.
A plot of 2,267 acres of land near Gallatin Gateway will remain open and available for a Montana family’s next generation to continue agricultural operations. The Gallatin Valley Land Trust partnered with the Kamps family to establish a conservation easement to keep the working ranch intact.
