“Be a plan maker, not a plan taker,” said Wally Congdon, a Montana attorney and rancher who helps citizens and local governments protect their rights, particularly when dealing with government plans and related action.
Deputy County Attorney for Civil Matters for Montana’s Mineral County, Congdon works together with Willy Peck, a county resource use spokesman for Mineral, Sanders and Lake Counties, to ensure their local communities are considered cooperators in all government plans that affect their citizens.
Congdon says that there is a distinct difference between being a cooperator, coordinator or collaborator, when it comes to impacting federal, state, or other big government land use plans, water use plans and related regulations. (the collateral affect)
“Local governments have the right to be cooperators,” he said. Those government entities could include conservation districts, grazing districts, townships, fire districts, city governments, conservation districts, county governments and more, he said.
In order to be a “cooperator” in federal or state government plans, local governments like county commissions should develop plans to advance their community’s custom, culture, resources, heritage, history and economic base.
Congdon says, in order to become a cooperator with a federal agency or agencies, “Contact the agency, tell them your local unit of government wants to become a cooperator because you have special expertise and knowledge regarding your particular jurisdiction and area. You will then sign a memorandum of understanding with the agency in regard to the particular plan and actions – it will specify who is doing what.”
“Make a commitment – you’re going to play,” he said.
“If you are going to take the plan, you have someone else write it, you sit down and comment on it, if they like your comments, they might change something. If they don’t, they won’t. The difference is, if you are a cooperating agency from the time it starts, you get to help write it, look at comments, etc,” he said. “You help ‘make’ the plan.”
Additionally, small government groups like counties should define “what you are, what you need, what you don’t need, where you want to be in the next years,” he said.
Congdon and Peck have helped ensure that their counties’ thoughts were included in the Columbia River Basin Restoration Program, an EPA plan focused on restoring the Columbia River Basin. The plan affects two Canadian provinces as well as Idaho, Washington, Montana, Oregon and Wyoming.
His county is also providing input into the National Old Growth Amendment affecting old growth forests, the Lolo U.S. Forest Service national plan. and a five-state grizzly bear plan.
“You wouldn’t think it matters, but it matters to us. We are the corridor those bears walk through,” he said.
“Beaverhead and Madison County still cooperate after 25 years with Redrocks Lake National Refuge. Once you help write the plan, you don’t lose status, as policy starts to change, you still have status,” he said.
When he was made aware of the CRBRP, he and the county commissioners hired a planner to work as the county resource expert. “We identified what resources we had, what we do, our custom, culture and heritage and we hired someone to attend meetings and help ‘make the plan’ instead of ‘taking the plan,’” he said.
“One county, Lake County, was a cooperator in that plan. Which made an incredible difference in what the plan looks like on the ground,” said Congdon.
Peck, who once owned his own sawmill and is now a full-time county resource manager, said that by developing a county resource plan and being aware of bigger government plans affecting the local area, small governments can protect their citizens.
“He sees the big picture. He sees that when you close down the sawmill, it affects the machine shop, the tire shop, the logging trucks, the fuel depot and the chainsaw shop.”
“This is what CRP did to us,” said Congdon. “We had a great time working on CRP but it closed down the tire shops, the tractor shops, because we didn’t need them anymore,” he said.
Congdon said Peck’s experience in private industry helps him serve his community in this position.
“You figure out how you are going to be affected, you incorporate those concerns and solutions into the plan,” he said.
Have a county or local government plan
“Every county has something different. We don’t have oil wells we need to worry about, ours is forest, endangered species, wildfire, agriculture. The same laws apply,” he said.
The Lake County plan is 51 pages and includes copies of various codified state and federal laws that expressly require coordination with local government.
The Beaverhead County plan is 85 pages and includes exhibits and attachments that help describe why certain information included in the plan is credible.
Be aware
Congdon said that all citizens and especially those serving on local government entities like county commissions should “build a radar screen” so they are aware of industry, wildlife and environmental activity in their region.
“If you go to my house and look at my dining room table, you’ll see magazines – hay and forage, national wildlife, Sierra Club Newsletter, Tri-State Livestock News and Rural Montana Cooperative newsletters. You have to build a radar screen, you have to figure out what the devil is going on,” he said.
Congdon also points out that local governments can ask to be a cooperator even if they don’t have an established “plan” of their own.
Tips on cooperating with government plans:
Don’t spend money where you don’t need to – if your fire department needs gear to deal with electrical issues, you should expect the federal agency to finance that. Tell them your taxpayers don’t want to pay the bill. Tell them what you need for equipment, training, awareness, knowledge.
How do we manage things like fuel load created by federal government decision/plan so we don’t have big fires?
Mitigation – limiting the degree of impact – how do we make sure we don’t harm residents’ homes?
Mitigation includes eliminating the impact or providing as an alternative solution: if we quit grazing here, where do we find the replacement grass?
If something breaks, what equipment does the emergency unit need?
What if the federal government doesn’t include your input?
“What happens when they ignore you? You file an appeal of the record of decision,” said Congdon. “When the BLM did this in Montana regarding sage grouse in Eastern Montana, I did a protest for 28 counties. We shut down the sage grouse planning for two and a half years so they could go back and do the planning properly. It is better if the agencies do this with us. We are local, this gives us special expertise.”
Another option is to file an administrative appeal with the agency stating it hasn’t complied with federal law and that it is required to comply, “so they have to go back to square one,” he said. “We’ve done it several times,” said Congdon.
“The remedy isn’t a federal lawsuit or state lawsuit, the remedy is, administratively they are required to do this and if they don’t, their process is botched and they have to go back and do it over again,” he said.
“I learned 25 years ago, the agencies themselves are not ill-spirited, but they don’t know your community. The solution wasn’t to sue, it was to step up. The Mineral County land use plan has a resource section. The summary tells them that federal agencies shall cooperate; cooperation shall include joint planning, environmental research, environmental assessments, etc. We aren’t just commenting on the plan, we are helping make the plan, I want them to look at where cows graze, look at weeds, forage, where is the research that has been done lately…”
“We’ve avoided litigating,” said Congdon. “We are in a position to make plans and we can make the plan better. We have the horsepower and ability to affect the equation. This isn’t the case for non-governmental organizations like cattlemen’s groups or Nature Conservancy – they can’t do this. This is for local government, Native American tribes, etc.,” he said.
“The fire district might want to reach out to BLM to develop a fire mitigation plan. Get rid of the fuel load to help prevent big fires. In the end, that helps agriculture, too,” said Congdon.
The fire district might want to reach out to BLM to develop a fire mitigation plan. Get rid of the fuel load to help prevent big fires. That helps agriculture, too.
Remember this, says Congdon: “Recognizing that the arrangements under which the federal government cooperates through conservation districts with other local units of government and land users have effectively aided in the protection and improvement of the nation’s basic resources, it is declared to be the policy of the United States that these arrangements and similar cooperative arrangements should be utilized to the fullest extent practicable.”
16 USC Section 2003 {B}
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Publish date : 2024-09-06 07:30:00
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