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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-27-2020 Public Comment - C. Nixon - Strategic Plan Priorities Chris Nixon, 719 N Wallace Ave, Bozeman, MT. I will be speaking on behalf of The Sacajawea Audubon Society as I serve on the SAS Board and serve as the Wetland Preservation Project Committee Chair. SACAJAWEA AUDUBON SOCIETY (SAS) is a non-profit grassroots membership organization, serving the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Montana since 1967. Through strong leadership, SAS has steadily grown to over 800 members. SAS builds on an interest in birds to promote the conservation of our natural environment through enjoyment, education and action. THE WETLAND PRESERVATION PROJECT (WPP) was initiated to accomplish SAS's mission to protect and restore increasingly rare wetland habitat in our region, and to provide educational opportunities and enjoyment for generations to come. Sacajawea Audubon Society has taken on the goal of preserving as many wetland acres in the Northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as possible. We, through the generous gift of of Ileana Indreland and Mike Delaney, are now the only Audubon Chapter within Montana to own its own property - the Indreland Audubon Wetland Preserve. The preserve currently consist of 32 gifted acres of mostly wetlands. Our plans are to add further acreage to the site through purchase and gift agreements. We have contracted with Confluence to develop a restoration plan for the preserve, which we will be implementing in the next couple of years. The IAWP is the first of what we hope to be many wetland preservation undertakings by SAS. We are undertaking steps to develop a wetland bank on the site in hopes that wetland mitigation currently being mitigated outside the East Gallatin Watershed may in the near future be mitigated within the City Limits of Bozeman. On the 23rd of this month, the current administration ended federal protection for many miles of streams and wetlands. This action rolls back or eliminates some protections which have been in place for over 50 years under the Clean Water Act. It will allow those who would do so, to dump pollutants in federally unprotected waterways and fill in some wetlands. This can threaten public water supplies, river systems and drainage basins. This action could have been done under prior administrations. It just did not happen. This is a good indication that with all the important work that has been done to protect our clean water resources, that protection isn't necessarily secure. We have failed to put the proper regulations in place to truly protect our water resources. This is a tragedy on the national, state, and local levels. What does it mean specifically to us in Bozeman and the immediate area? Bozeman is one of the fastest growing cities in the country and we are losing more wetlands every year to development. We need to have a no-net-loss regulation that protects wetlands within the East Gallatin drainage basin. The City is already struggling to meet standards for returning treated water from our waste treatment facility into the East Gallatin River. That is in great part due to the non-source upstream inputs on the E. Gallatin. With less protections upstream, it will likely make it even more difficult and costly for the City of Bozeman to meet the necessary water treatment requirements. This will put further strain on the river system environmentally and further strain on taxpayers as the City of Bozeman. We are going to have increased cost to counterbalance increased input and negligence by others upstream on the East Gallatin. We understand that mitigating wetlands within the East Gallatin Drainage was considered as a priority by the Commission in 2018/2019. However, with the incredible growth in or area, city staff simply can't tackle every issue. We understand that all of you and city staff are pushed to the max by demands of our unprecedented rate of growth. However, that is exactly why we with Sacajawea Audubon Society encourage you to make protection of our few remaining wetlands an immediate priority by all means possible. And that the city do whatever it can to require mitigation of lost or impacted wetlands in our immediate watershed to be mitigated in the East Gallatin watershed. Each time we loose wetlands to mitigation outside our watershed, we loose the holding capacity needed for water in our drainage to replenish the flow in the East Gallatin during dryer months. This can cause degradation of the fisheries in the East Gallatin and make it more costly for us to treat waste water before it is added back to the East Gallatin. Keeping every acre of wetland to perform the functions of water infiltration, sediment, nutrient, and containment removal provides those critical benefits to Bozeman taxpayers, especially as we now face additional stresses of climate change and increased drought. We ask that you consider making protection of our area wetlands a priority. Part of the difficult work to undertake this task has already been done. In 1997, your predecessors as part of the Bozeman City- County Planning Board prepared the Critical Lands Study for the Bozeman Area. This seems to be a document lost to the ether. I rarely find anyone who knows it ever existed. It is not a myth. I checked the records at the Bozeman Public Library and the library holds one copy as a Non-circulating item held offsite, what ever that means. But, even better, due to a leak from a hot water pipe and resulting efforts to prevent damage to old boxes of documents.. ...it turns out there was a copy of the document in one of the boxes. I am glad that the copy was not stamped with a "Do not remove from City of Bozeman Planning and Community Development" but rather stamped as "Please Return to City of Bozeman Planning and Community Development" . So, here you go. It is now being returned from the old NENA Files. can't imagine that there was only ever one copy in the Planning Department. But apparently other copies were lost. I hope it's contents with chapters on both critical wetlands and critical streams will be of benefit to the Commission and the citizens of Bozeman as we face potential loss of our remaining wetlands. As of the writing of the Critical Lands Study for the Bozeman Area in 1997, indications were that 27% of all wetlands in Montana had already been destroyed and 50% of wetlands nation wide had already been destroyed since 1800. Of course, there has been further loss since then. We need to change that path for a sound and just future for coming generations. We hope you will reconsider this issue of wetland preservation and when necessary require mitigation of lost wetlands within the City to be mitigated back in our drainage of the East Gallatin. Thank you, Chris Nixon