Damaging the Environment
with Road Rip

After culvert removal summer of  96	After  runoff spring of 97

  

Click on picture to see more... Notice orange backpack in some pictures	Two reasons for road rip are given:  1).  Provide security for grizzly bears. (Someone should inform the grizzlies that visit the town of Whitefish every fall.) 2).  It is expensive to maintain closed roads to prevent culvert failure.  (Yet the difference between and failure and removal is that failure occurs only once in 20 to 40 years in a drainage.  Removal involves 20 to 40 culverts in one year.)      After these roads are destroyed the forest managers cannot access the area to fight wildfire, manage weed or insect infestations or repair erosion that results from removing the culverts.       During the removal of the culverts, heavy equipment was allowed to work in live streams.  No diversion was used.  Special permits were required from Montana agencies to permit the violation of Montana water quality standards.   Other state and federal environmental regulations were violated as well.      Many of the culverts ripped out of the ground are in drainages that are important Bull trout spawning streams.  This fish is an ESA threatened species.  Sediments entering the spawning streams are blamed for much of the decline of this fish as well as the threatened WestSlope Cutthroat trout.  One road in the drainage of a Bull trout spawning stream, South Coal Creek, had 41 culverts removed.  When you look at the pictures visualize the muddy waters during spring runoff.  This man- made calamity was brought to us by the U.S.FOREST SERVICE at a cost of  MILLIONS.
Mathias Cr. Before Spring Runoff
Same site after runoff
Same site. One of 41 culvert removals in Coal Cr. drainage

This page was last updated on 12/02/06