Tristan Scott | Flathead Beacon
Last spring, when the Montana Legislature fused the powers of two existing water-quality watchdog groups, the genesis of the concept was to form a single entity with broader geographic dominion. Although the legislative action was part of Gov. Greg Gianforte’s “red tape reduction” initiative, proponents saw the merger as an opportunity to broaden the regional scale of stewardship to encompass watersheds spanning Montana’s entire west slope.
For years, administrators for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) had been angling to expand and combine the powers of the Flathead Basin Commission (FBC) and the Upper Columbia Conservation Commission (UC3), conjoining the entities’ shared objectives with a single unifying tent-pole.
Under the new Western Montana Conservation Commission (WMCC), the horizon has expanded to include the Kootenai River, the upper and lower Clark Fork River and the Bitterroot River, as well as a host of other drainages and tributaries.