In early June, some 300 people gathered in Billings, to discuss a burgeoning economy in Montana and the nation. It’s been called the biggest thing you’ve never seen, and a strangely silent revolution.
This emerging economy has grown out of the shadow of Montana’s staple industries, such as timber, farming, ranching and mining and covers the entire state, from the forested west to the grasslands of the east. And its primary beneficiaries are things Montanans hold dear: fish, wildlife, soil, communities and our state’s most precious resource, water. Welcome, folks, to Montana’s restoration economy.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer says that Montana can be a national, if not world, leader in creating a sustainable restoration economy that is good for the state’s land, water and communities.
To begin the process, the Governor’s Restoration Forum in Billings convened a broad group of people, one mirroring the diversity of forest, watershed, urban and grassland restoration projects that occur in Montana. State and federal agencies, as well as local politicians, conservation and environmental organizations, academicians, restoration practitioners and businesses, labor unions and economic development interests came together for two days of sharing, learning and strategizing.
By the time the governor’s chief policy adviser, Hal Harper, gave the closing remarks, it was clear that we had some common ground on important restoration topics, such as funding, training and the need for better coordination of restoration businesses and projects on a statewide basis.
Restoration seems to promote this type of collaborative process, and it’s going to take diverse collaboration and public support for that needed restoration work to be done in our state.
The forum was significant on a number of fronts. It was a recognition of work that has been going on for some time in Montana. It was an opportunity for diverse parties to see the common bonds in their work. And most importantly, it was a high-profile endorsement of our burgeoning restoration economy.
The big picture look at our restoration economy came from one of the forum’s keynote speakers, Storm Cunningham, author of a book titled, the Restoration Economy: The Greatest New Growth Frontier. The world, he writes, faces a trio of braided crises: one of constraint – a recognition that the world has finite resources; one of corrosion – the wearing down and out of our built environment and infrastructure; and one of contamination – the poisoning of the natural systems that provide us with life’s necessities: air, water, soil and food.
The restoration economy has emerged in response to these threats. That economy, he notes, has eight component industries, including the restoration of ecosystems, watersheds, fisheries, farms, contaminated industrial sites, infrastructure, historical sites and areas afflicted by disasters, natural and otherwise.
Cunningham’s book looks at the sum total of these economic activities and conservatively estimates that more than $2 trillion is spent annually on restorative development. On a hard-worked planet, the future is rich with opportunities in the restoration economy.
Few efforts better exemplify this phenomenon in practice than the Superfund cleanup and dam removal at the Milltown Reservoir on the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers in western Montana.
In this integrated effort, the mantra is the three Rs: remediation, restoration and redevelopment. Remediation is about the actual cleanup itself — the removal of more than two million cubic yards of toxic mining sediment and the dam they are piled up behind at the confluence of the two rivers.
The chief aims of the remediation are the recovery of the contaminated Milltown aquifer, which provides drinking water for area residents, and the return of a passage for the threatened native bull trout.
Restoration at Milltown seeks to return the Clark Fork and lower Blackfoot Rivers to some semblance of what they once were. On this front, the state is working on its plan that would restore the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers to a naturally functioning and stable ecosystem by reestablishing natural stream channels and native vegetation. The end goals there will be improved water quality and habitat for fish and wildlife, and new recreational opportunities for people.
Redevelopment asks how the local communities of Bonner and Milltown, and beyond, will gain the most benefit from the cleanup. Through a collaborative, citizen-led process, the Milltown Redevelopment Working Group created a redevelopment plan for the area, which builds on the cleanup and restoration efforts. Among other things, the conceptual plan describes a park complex with trails, river access and an interpretive center to tell the many stories of the historic confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers.
In the next five to 10 years, roughly $100 million will be pumped into the western Montana economy by the Milltown effort. Remediation has been estimated at $90 million. Add to that another $7.6 million for the state’s restoration effort. And already more than 3 million dollars has been dedicated to the redevelopment piece. A related effort upriver in the Deer Lodge Valley will tally $120 million for the cleanup there.
Once finished, the economic value of the work in the Clark Fork basin and its Superfund sites in Butte, Silver Bow Creek, Anaconda, Opportunity, Warm Springs Ponds, the Deer Lodge Valley and Milltown will likely approach a billion dollars. Through the Superfund law, the Clark Fork cleanup is paid for largely by BP-ARCO, the party legally responsible. In this, we are incredibly fortunate.
But that’s not always the case. Most restoration work in Montana is piecemeal, under-funded and under-valued by the general public. The Milltown Superfund effort is a high profile, large-scale project, while most restoration efforts in Montana and the region are much smaller and less noticed.
For example, the nonprofit conservation group Wildlands CPR has been promoting road removal as a key component of restoration work for more than 10 years. Road removal includes removing stream crossings, constructing cross-road drains, ripping road surfaces, recontouring road prisms, and outsloping. Road removal reduces habitat fragmentation and stream sedimentation, as well as the impacts associated with some forms of motorized vehicle use. And it creates jobs.
For instance, we’ve found that for every $1 million spent on this work, 33 people are employed. And because much of this work requires heavy equipment, many jobs go to local people making good wages. But much of this goes unnoticed by the general public, which still sees road removal as a radical idea aimed at limiting access to forests.
Another ongoing road-removal program in Washington state provides an excellent example of how cities can save money while restoring habitat and creating jobs.
The Cedar River and Tolt River watersheds outside of Seattle provide clean, untreated drinking water to that city, but the watershed is damaged and not providing the necessary water.
The city has now closed access to the Cedar River watershed and is removing approximately ten miles of road per year. To meet the goal of removing 200 miles over the next 20 years, the city will spend approximately $6 million.
One alternative to removing the roads and restoring the watershed that the city considered was to build a water filtration facility. But that would have been a multi-million dollar project with ongoing facility costs thereafter. The city believed road decommissioning and watershed restoration would be much cheaper over time than building a filtration system. As well, the city will end up with a restored watershed and continued clean water.
While there are plenty of similar projects that could occur in Montana and the region, such as the reclamation of a half million mines and the restoration of several headwaters, the money needed to do this critical work continues to shrink. Agency budgets don’t have restoration line items and often restoration projects have very high price tags with little short-term economic gain. This calls for a big shift in how we think about restoration benefits.
For example, it’s much cheaper to fix or remove a damaging road before it fails than it is to clean up the mess after a failure. Our national forests alone have a road maintenance backlog of $10 billion, so it’s going to take a lot of public and political pressure to get work like this done. And roads on public lands are only one aspect of restoration. We also need to address weeds, streams, forests, grasslands, fisheries and wildlife in a comprehensive way in order to get the biggest bang for our buck.
The forum in Billings provided a first step, and folks are already following up. Restoration has rekindled a bond between environmentalists and labor unions, and it was great to see Forum sponsorship from both groups. A workshop on stewardship contracting as a way to fund restoration work on federal lands was recently held in Missoula, and a forum follow-up meeting is in the works in Missoula to keep the energy alive and the communications flowing.
It’s more important than ever for those of us involved in all aspects of restoration to give it a clearer face. We need to see the restoration economy. As Pat Williams has said, “restoration needs a brand.” It needs to conjure images of vital rural communities, highly skilled and well-paid workers, clean water, healthy fisheries and hunting grounds.
Perhaps the most significant thing about the restoration economy is that it debunks the old canard about jobs vs. the environment. We can, and must, have both. On the heels of the Restoration Forum, Montana seems poised to lead the way. The key now is to build on the forum’s momentum, and move from word to deed.
Marnie Criley is the restoration coordinator for Wildlands CPR (www.wildlandscpr.org)
Michael Kustudia is the coordinator for the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee (www.cfrtac.org)
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