The Wilderness Sportsman

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to award water pollution permits in Idaho that cause further environmental degradation of the severely impaired Spokane River as it flows through Washington, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the Sierra Club and Center for Justice. If the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permits are approved, the Spokane River will continue to exceed maximum pollution limits.

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PORTLAND, OR. — The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, Dr. Pat Munday and former Montana fishing guide George Wuerthner officially notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service May 15th that they will sue over an April 24, 2007 decision that the Montana fluvial arctic grayling no longer warrants protection as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Rather than concluding Montana grayling are recovered and secure, the agency instead decided that extinction of the Montana population, which is the last in the lower 48 states, is insignificant.

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But as the largest wildfire to affect Minnesota in decades sears more than 76,000 acres of wilderness in the United States and Canada, it’s also burning into the wallets and pocketbooks of a community almost entirely dependent on tourism dollars just before the Memorial Day weekend launches the summer season.

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Besides recommending that 81,000 acres be added to the Bob Marshall-Scapegoat Wilderness, and 6,000 acres to the Mission Mountain Wilderness, the legislative proposal that will be sent to Congress involves the Lolo National Forest’s Seeley Ranger District; lands within the 41,000-acre Blackfoot Community Conservation Area, in the area of Monture Creek; and includes funding for a new boiler and a 3.2 megawatt Co-Generation facility on about two acres at the Pyramid Mountain Lumber Inc. plant site in Seeley Lake.

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The U.S. Forest Service will allow a Montrose family to operate a gold mine within the Uncompahgre Wilderness Area on the Uncompahgre National Forest east of Ouray.

Charlie Richmond, supervisor of the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests, announced Tuesday the agency will allow Robert and Marjorie Miller of Montrose to mine for gold on a 20-acre, unpatented mining claim at the Robin Redbreast Gold Mine near the Middle Fork of the Cimarron River.

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Ballard, who lives in Baker City and has rolled up more than 10,000 miles on her ATV over the past seven years, doesn’t think much of the Wallowa-Whitman’s proposal to ban motorized vehicles (excluding snowmobiles) from about 5,000 miles of unmaintained roads.

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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) responded to reports of an injured bear with a cub in the Osceola National Forest. The bear had been caught up in the fire that raged through the forest last week.