- Conserve the Peace and Quiet essential to public health and the health of our native ecosystems.
- Ensure timber sale programs on public lands truly sustain water quality, fish and wildlife.
- Pursue these goals through public education and public involvement whenever possible, and through administrative appeals and lawsuits when necessary.
MDFWP photo
Wake up! A generous donor has agreed to match $5,000 in donations to Swan View Coalition!
So DONATE NOW and see your donation doubled!
Grizzly bears are emerging from their winter dens and are faced with logging, roads, industrial-strength recreation, and proposals to strip them of their protections under the Endangered Species Act!
They need our help and yours, so please help us to continue our lawsuit against the revised Flathead Forest Plan, to oppose the Flathead's onslaught of commercial recreational Special Use Permits, and to oppose efforts to "delist" grizzly bears.
When we protect the bears and their habitat, we also protect many other wildlife species!
Please join with others today to support our work on behalf of fish and wildlife!
Thank you!
Our Holidays 2022 newsletter looks at how recreation gets out of control on public lands and what we can do about it. It also provides a brief summary of our work in 2022 and why your membership is important!
Below is our newsletter's table of contents. Click here to view or download our newsletter as a pdf.
A big THANK YOU to those of you who have made donations that support our continuing work!
Won't you join them and make a donation today?
Fish, wildlfie and people are counting on us - and you!
This Thanksgiving we are thankful to have public lands worth protecting and your support of our work to do so!
It is your kind words and your monetary donations that have kept us at the forefront of public lands conservation since 1984!
Thank you for your support and may you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Our Summer-Fall 2022 newsletter examines two major public relations blunders by the Flathead National Forest as it attempts to force recreational development on a public that is tired of seeing its public lands turned into playgrounds for the rich and racy! We also announce the resumption of our biweekly Swan Range Community Potlucks and Music Jam Sessions - and our Annual Membership Meeting to be held November 20.
Below is our newsletter's table of contents. Click here to view or download our newsletter as a pdf.
A big THANK YOU to those of you who have made donations that support our continuing work!
Won't you join them and make a donation today?
Fish, wildlife and people are counting on us - and you!
The Flathead National Forest is attempting to approve a mega-expansion of the Holland Lake Lodge facilities on public land without informed public input and with no Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement. Tell the Flathead NOW to back up and start again!
--- UPDATE 11/23/22: According to the Missoulian, the Flathead has sent POWDR Corp. back to the drawing board to fix its Master Development Plan, but POWDR intends to resubmit its MDP largely unchanged and the Flathead has not rescinded the current Special Use Permit - which says on its face that it can't be transferred to POWDR.
--- UPDATE 10/15/22: According to the Daily Montanan, the Flathead received over 6,500 public comments, with 99% of them opposed to the mega-expansion! Stay tuned, the Flathead has not given up on this illconceived idea!
--- UPDATE 9/15/22: The public comment period has been extended to October 7, but it is still important to ask for a full 60-day comment period and make the other points listed below or in our latest comment letter.
Here is a good article about how public comment is running so far and you can see for yourself at https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public//ReadingRoom?Project=61746 where there are currently over 2,000 comments, mostly against this mega-expansion! The Flathead is also holding another public meeting, this time at the Seeley Lake Elementary School on Tuesday, October 4, from 5:30 - 7:30pm; or you can join the meeting online ---
The new development will be managed by the Lodge's joint venture partner POWDR, "an adventure lifestyle company" based in Park City, Utah, and owner of Park City Mountain Resort. The mega-development would be allowed under a Special Use Permit for 15 acres of public land, will dwarf the historic lodge and will destroy the rustic natural character of Holland Lake and the upper Swan Valley! New constructed facilities would include:
1. Bob Marshall Lodge (28 rooms, two-story, 13,000 square feet)
2. 10 lake cabins (650 square feet each)
3. 16 smaller studio cabins (250 square feet each)
4. New Welcome Center (2,000 square feet, single-story building) for check in and retail
5. The Mission Mountains Restaurant (3,000 square feet) would be constructed adjacent to the Old Lodge, separated by a breezeway. The proposed Mission Mountains Restaurant would have indoor seating capacity for 100 guests. Outdoor seating would also be available for an additional 30 guests when the weather allows for it. The new kitchen will be designed to serve three times as many meals as the current kitchen.
6. Small watersport building (400 square feet)
7. New support buildings which would include a maintenance building (2,000 square feet) and employee housing (2,000 square feet)
This mega-expansion was announced September 1, right before Labor Day weekend, but the Forest Service wants public comments by September 21! Please insist on adequate time for public review and on adequate environmental review via the Flathead's electronic comment form at
https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public//CommentInput?Project=61746 . If that form does not work for you, then send an email directly to Project Leader Michele Mavor at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .
Here are some points you might want to make:
1. The Holland Lake Lodge Master Development Plan was not made publicly available on the Flathead's web site until September 6. The public needs plenty of time to review this 36-page document and the Forest Service's 16-page "scoping" document.
2. The scoping document is dead wrong to presume this mega-development can be "categorically excluded" from the prior preparation of an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement. Such shortcuts are intended for constructing an outhouse or a tool shed, not a destination resort!
3. Before Big Mountain was allowed to expand its ski area in 1995, the Flathead rightly prepared an Environmental Impact Statement on whether it should be allowed under that ski area Special Use Permit.
4. Before the Flathead allowed the Big Mountain ski area to expand ski lift facilities in Hellroaring Basin in 2019, it prepared an Environmental Assessment to be certain it should be allowed under the Special Use Permit.
5. The Flathead must provide 60 days for public comments on these Holland Lake "scoping" documents and then prepare an Environmental Impact Statement that fully assesses the potential impacts of this mega-development on this historic, rustic area and its natural ecosystems.
The Flathead is holding a public information meeting at the Holland Lake Lodge grounds from 5 - 7pm on Thursday, September 8th.
The Flathead's Holland Lake Lodge Facility Expansion Project documents can be viewed and downloaded at https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=61746 .
You can read our initial comment letter here and our more detailed comment letter here.
THANK YOU for taking a few moments to insure there is adaquate public involvement and environmental review of this proposed mega-expansion!
Swan View Coalition and Friends of the Wild Swan are in the process of filing three new lawsuits against the revised Flathead Forest Plan's building of logging roads in threatened grizzly bear and bull trout habitat!
In response to our initial 2019 lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy on 6/24/21 ordered FWS to redo its 2017 Biological Opinion approving the revised Forest Plan because it had abandoned key requirements of the prior Forest Plan's Amendment 19. He did not, however, order the Forest Service to rewrite similarly flawed portions of its Forest Plan.
Earthjustice on 2/15/22 filed a notice on our behalf that we would appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Molloy's 6/24/21 failure to find the Forest Service in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and order a rewrite of the similarly flawed portions of its Forest Plan and Environmental Impact Statement.
FWS issued its revised Biological Opinion on 2/16/22, which failed to require the protections afforded grizzly bear and bull trout under the prior Forest Plan Amendment 19.
Earthjustice on 5/31/22 filed a new lawsuit on our behalf against FWS and its revised Biological Opinion. Here is the news coverage in the Flathead Beacon, Missoula Current and Hungry Horse News.
Earthjustice on 7/19/22 filed on our behalf the required 60-day notice that we intend to sue the Forest Service for once again relying on FWS's flawed Biological Opinion to abandon the Amendment 19 road management program in its revised Forest Plan. We will file the actual lawsuit after the 60 days advance notice expires.
We are more than grateful for Earthjustice and its continued excellent representation of us, the bears and the trout in these lawsuits.
Click here for more information about our initial 2019 lawsuit against the revised Flathead Forest Plan and click here for more information about Judge Molloy's initial ruling.
And please DONATE NOW to support our work and the continuation of these important lawsuits. Act quickly and Cinnabar Foundation will match the first $4,000 in donations that we receive, doubling your impact!
Our Winter-Spring 2022 newsletter takes a sobering look at how, contrary to the way forest ecosystems function and the need to keep carbon stored in trees to combat climate warming, the government and industry instead want to log/thin all the forests they can get their hands on while building all the more logging roads to get it done!
Below is our newsletter's table of contents. Click here to view or download our newsletter as a pdf.
A big THANK YOU to those of you who have made donations that support our continuing work!
Won't you join them and make a donation today?
Fish, wildlife and people are counting on us - and you!
Logging road landslide into Sullivan Creek bull trout habitat!
Keith Hammer photo.
