SWAN VALLEY - Up to 9,500 acres of important fish and wildlife habitat in the Swan Valley are the topic of a current conservation effort by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP).

The West Swan Valley Conservation Project proposes three alternative methods to secure permanent conservation management of this area, entirely in Lake County, beginning approximately seven miles south of the town of Swan Lake and extending to 12 miles north of Condon.

Project lands are checkerboarded within the Swan River State Forest, along and west of U.S. Highway 83. Part of the larger Montana Legacy Project, through which the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land are working to conserve about 300,000 acres of corporate timberland owned by Plum Creek Timber Company across western Montana, these lands provide important habitat for bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout, grizzly bears, lynx, black bears, deer, elk, moose, and are popular for outdoor recreation. The project seeks to maintain working forests, protect fish and wildlife habitats and ensure public access.

The decision that must be made is whether FWP should move forward on the West Swan Valley Conservation Project and, by doing so, purchase a conservation easement or fee ownership (or some combination of these two alternatives) from the Nature Conservancy. FWP produced draft environmental assessment (EA) outlining the three alternatives. A No Action Alternative is also on the table, and would likely result in the sale of project lands to one or more conservation-oriented buyer.

According to the Nature Conservancy's website, a conservation easement is a voluntary, legally binding agreement that limits certain types of uses or prevents development from taking place on a piece of property now and in the future, while protecting the property's ecological or open-space values. In a conservation easement, a landowner voluntarily agrees to sell or donate certain rights associated with his or her property - often the right to subdivide or develop - and a private organization or public agency agrees to hold the right to enforce the landowner's promise not to exercise those rights. In essence, the rights are forfeited and no longer exist.

If FWP decides to pursue the purchase of a conservation easement, the land would continue to be managed for commercial timber harvest, subject to enforceable conservation easement restrictions designed to protect the integrity of fish and wildlife habitat. It would prohibit residential subdivision of the land, establish riparian exclusion zones and provide for continued public access and recreational use.

The anticipated primary funding source would be the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Program of the Bonneville Power Administration, which is making more than $15 million available for the project.

Under the second alternative, FWP would use BPA and other available federal or private funding to purchase the land directly from the Nature Conservancy.

"Fee title" is a real estate term that means the type of ownership giving the owner the maximum interest in the land, entitling the owner to use the property in any manner consistent with federal, state and local laws and ordinances. For example, most homeowners own their land in fee title. Fee title ownership would allow FWP to have direct control over the land, according to the Nature Conservancy's website.

The draft EA specifies FWP's estimated cost for the baseline inventory required in the first year following recording of the conservation easement is between $30,000 and $50,000. Annual conservation easement monitoring costs are expected to run less than $5,000 per year. Land management, fire, and other associated costs would be the responsibility of the underlying fee-title landowner. Long-term ownership of fee-title parcels by FWP would depend on the availability of management funds.

A copy of the draft EA is available online (http://fwpiis.mt.gov/publicnotices/notice_2465.aspx), outlining the three alternatives, including the purchase of a conservation easement, purchase of fee-title ownership, or a combination of conservation easement and fee-title ownership. A No Action Alternative is also on the table, and would likely result in the sale of project lands to one or more conservation-oriented buyer.

The public comment period for this draft EA runs through 5 p.m., Sept. 7. Following completion of the draft EA and public comment period, the FWP Region One supervisor will issue a decision notice that makes a recommendation to the FWP Commission on a course of action.