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New Easement Secures Access, Water Supply Near Whitefish

Map showing the Haskill Basin area.
Map showing the Haskill Basin area.

Conservationists threw a party Saturday to celebrate permanent land protections in the Haskill Basin watershed east of Whitefish.

Until recently, roughly three-quarters of Whitefish’s city water supply was guaranteed by nothing more than a spoken agreement between the city, the U.S. Forest Service, and the timber company that owned a large portion of the land in the Haskill Creek watershed.

That changed this past February, when the Trust for Public Land finalized an agreement with F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company to permanently protect 3,000 acres in the Haskill Basin.

"It was sort of just a handshake deal that everyone got to recreate up there, and it was a handshake deal that the city of Whitefish could keep using the water out of Haskill Basin."

That’s Dick Dolan, Northern Rockies director for the Trust of Public Land.

The land supports local timber jobs and is important habitat for fish and wildlife. The new easement prevents it from being converted to future residential or commercial uses.

It was funded by $7 million from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program, plus $2 million from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Another $7.7 million came from the  1 percent sales tax the city of Whitefish passed last year. Stoltze also contributed by reducing the price of the parcel.

On Saturday, state and federal land managers, Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester, and Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld were all on hand for the celebration.

Last week Daines and Tester introduced a bill to rename a mountain in the Madison Valley in memory of Alex Diekmann, who initiated and facilitated easement negotiations in the Haskill Basin.

Nicky is MTPR's Flathead-area reporter.
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