Letter-To-The-Editor by the Montana Wilderness Society

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Re: the letter to the editor in the Missoulian today I see the glass as half full and in our favor. As a well seasoned expert witness in my prior life and having sat through a lot discussions with various attorneys, we would have loved to come across something in the archives like this from the Montana Wilderness Association. John Gatchell paints a very rosy picture of the cooperation between the Montana Wilderness Association, the USFS and the Montana Pilots Association. For him to come out publicly and pronounce the Schafer airstrip a success and "uncontested" in a public fashion is something the RAF would never have enough money to buy. His letter needs to be clipped and saved for later use when the time comes. His admission that "successful collaboration" among the various parties is successful is priceless. I can't believe he made such a public proclimation but since he did we should rejoice. His comments that they don't want any airstrips opened in the Bob Marshall is understandable and predictable.

For those of you that don't get the Missoulian, and I couldn't find it on their web site today I will retype it here for you.

This is typed exactly as printed in the Missoulian Opinion page on 12/21/03

Backcountry airstrips (sub header)

Great Burn landing strip not contentious (headline, error it should have been Bear not Burn)

The Dec. 11 story "Rehberg fights for backcountry airstrips" by Missoulian Washington, D.C. reporter Ted Monoson missed some important Montana facts.

Readers should be aware the U.S. Forest Service has no plans to close the wilderness airstrip at Schafer Meadows in the Great Bear (not the Bob Marshall) Wilderness. Nor is the continued use of Schafer a "main source of contention" between pilots and conservationists.

On the contrary, Schafer is managed through successful collaboration between wilderness conservation leaders including the Montana Wilderness Association, U.S. Forest Service and Montana Pilots Association.

Continued use of the Schafer landing strip is authorized in legislation creating the Great Bear Wilderness at the request of the sponsor, the late Montana Sen. Lee Metcalf. There is no other private aircraft landing facility in Montana wilderness.

The number of flights into Schafer is limited by mutual agreement in order to maintain the surrounding natural character of the Great Bear Wilderness.

Montana conservationists, however, strongly oppose the pilots' proposal to establish a half-dozen new landing strips for private planes in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where Montanans find quiet majesty today.

Members of the MPA, Forest Service personel and Montana Aeronautics working at Schafer.

Text of letter sent to Gatchell in response to his letter-to-the-editor:

Dear Mr. Gatchell,

I read your letter-to-the-editor recently regarding Representative Rehberg’s support for H.R. 2776 the Backcountry Airstrip Protection legislation. As a member of the Montana Pilots’ Association there was a misstatement in your letter that I wanted to correct. You wrote the following: “Montana conservationists, however, strongly oppose the pilots' proposal to establish a half-dozen new landing strips for private planes in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where Montanans find quiet majesty today.”

The pilots of Montana have no intention of establishing new landing strips within the wilderness area. There are existing closed airstrips in the Bob Marshall. These strips are off limits to pilots and there is no move to attempt to change their status.

I believe that I also read somewhere else recently that you made a similar statement about airstrips in the new Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Again, there are existing airstrips within the Monument that are open for public use, as they have been for many, many years, long before the Breaks became a designated Monument. We have no desire to establish new airstrips in the Breaks.

Best regards,