Rating:

1.0 (1 vote)

HELENA - Some of the roads used by Montana fishermen are having environmental impacts on the fish they're trying to catch, and that's leading to restoration work on U.S.. Forest Service roads across the state.

Chris Frissell, the Director of the Pacific Rivers Council, has been studying the impact that roads have on fish habitat for over 20 years; in fact, it was his research which helped kick start the Legacy Roads program, which is aimed at maintaining and decommissioning roads in the Helena National Forest.

"The road will basically be, in ten years, invisible, and you will probably not even see that a road was here because the original slope is being restored, and all the hydrology and all the flow of the groundwater and surface water over this site will be very similar to what it was before there was ever a road built here," Frissell explained.

Frissell says when the roads were built there was no knowledge about how they would affect watersheds. He says that when sediment from roads and trails gets into the streams it dirties the water, which means fish can't see their food supply.

Frissell explained that native fish like the bull trout and the westslope cutthroat are most heavily impacted in Montana.

The Legacy Roads program has provided nearly $180 million dollars nationwide, and Montana has seen nearly 10% of those funds.

U.S. Forest Service hydrologist Dave Callery says without this funding, these projects in Montana would not happen, noting, "It is definitely rewarding, my job as a hydrologist is to work to reduce the impacts of management activities, including roads from the National Forest on streams and water quality. When we pull roads like this, it has a definite and tangible impact."

The Legacy Roads Program also restores culverts so that aquatic species can travel more easily, and Frissell says these projects also improve the quality of drinking water.

As Frissell looks at the road restoration he is able to say that a career's worth of work has paid off, stating, "It is just gratifying to me to see it finally coming to pass on a pretty significant scale."

The National Forest reports it plans on keeping the program going for 2011, and even though getting the funds is competitive, Montana hopes to secure about $9 million dollars for future projects.