Plains Public Access

In 2020, The Weyerhaeuser Timber Company sold their private timber holdings in Northwest Montana. The property was over 630,000 acres and it was made up of old Plum Creek land which the company acquired in their 2016 merger. These lands were originally acquired during the 1860’s from the Federal government. (For a very brief history, please click here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Creek_Timber)

The land was sold to a company called Southern Pine Plantations in 2020 and they then sold off pieces to other timber and land companies. One of these pieces of land (the 14,000 acres south of Plains), was bought by the pension fund for the State of Missouri Department of Transportation and Patrol Employees Retirement System (MPERS) under the umbrella, MKH Montana. Since then, there has been several attempts to buy the property to keep it open to the public. Below we will explore the most recent attempts.

In 2021, The Trust for Public Lands (TPL) and MKH Montana put together a project called “Penrose Portal” where they were going to try and facilitate a buyer and a land holder to keep the property open to the public. Had the project gone through, the Lolo National Forest would have acquired and managed the land and repaid TPL for funding the project through Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). We found out in 2022 that do to several unfortunate (but not avoidable) reasons, the project was terminated.

Since 2022, there has been many conversations behind the scenes, attempts and dialogue with various government and non-government agencies to work together to try and keep this area open to the public.

The Lolo National Forest has also selected several tracts which they viewed as priority areas which could be purchased in smaller areas if funding for the larger area couldn’t be found. In this time period, the Lolo National Forest said it could pursue some of this land if it were within the current boundary lines of the National Forest, which it is. There are other non-government organizations willing to help with the process, but we need the support of the Supervisor’s Office and Land Department in Missoula and we have had very little luck in returning any updates or calls.

We had been working with our former District Ranger on moving this project forward. However, there will be a new Ranger coming in and we will have to redevelop a positive relationship so we can show the Missoula Office that some things may have accidentally been missed some things and should be looking into this project again with time to make it happen and a community behind it.

We believe there was an incomplete application submitted, a lack of community presence helping with the project and a disconnect with the urban area of Missoula on how things are changing in the rural corners of the Lolo National Forest.

We have been getting an influx of Missoula (for example) and it fills up our local campgrounds and trails and this property would help to offset that.

Please visit: https://plainspublicaccess.org/whats-at-stake/what-do-we-do-next/ for more information on what we’re currently working on for the project.