Changes to Missoula County's solid waste regulations will widen the bear buffer zone around the city limits and phase in the requirement of bear-resistant trash bins over the next three years.
The act would add about 78,000 acres of wilderness to the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Mission Mountains wilderness areas and create two recreation management areas for snowmobiling and mountain biking.
Richard Manning writes, "At the very least, the lands’ management needs to be forcibly amputated from the parks department and entrusted to a separate, stand-alone entity run by restoration ecologists."
An effort to purchase 480 acres on Marshall Mountain took another step forward on Tuesday when Missoula County approved an option agreement with Five Valleys Land Trust.