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By Root 1978 0

that we need some fuel reduction in our forests. Forest restoration would eliminate overfueling of the forests, especially of the low small trees. Now, that overfueling is eliminated just by burning it. The federal government’s National Fire Plan would do it by mechanical extraction of the logs, the purpose being to reduce the biomass of fuel. Most of our American timber comes from Canada! Yet the original mandate of our national forests was to provide a steady stream of timber, and to provide watershed protection. It used to be that 25% of the revenue from national forests went to schools, but that national forest revenue has decreased greatly recently. More logging would mean more money for our schools.

“At present, there is no growth policy for all of Ravalli County! The valley’s population has grown by 40% in the last decade, and it may grow by 40% in the next decade: where will that next 40% go? Can we lock the door to more people moving in? Do we have the right to lock the door? Should a farmer be forbidden to subdivide and develop his property, and should he be sentenced to a life of farming? A farmer’s money for his retirement is all in his land. If the farmer is forbidden to sell his land for development or to build a house, what are you doing to him?

“As for the long-term effects of growth, there will be cycles here in the future, as there have been in the past, and in one of the cycles the newcomers will go back home. Montana will never overdevelop, but Ravalli County will continue to develop. There is a huge amount of publicly owned land here in the county. The price of land here will rise until it gets too high, at which point prospective buyers will start a land boom somewhere else with cheaper land. Ultimately, all of the farmland in the valley will be developed.”

Now, this is Chip Pigman’s story: “My mother’s grandfather moved here from Oklahoma around 1925 and had an apple orchard. My mother grew up here on a dairy and sheep farm, and she now owns a real estate agency in town. My father moved here as a child, was in mining and sugarbeets, and held a second job in construction; that’s how I got into construction. I was born and went to school here, and I got my B.A. in accounting at the University of Montana nearby in Missoula.

“For three years I moved to Denver, but I disliked city living and I was determined to move back here, in part because the Bitterroot is a great place to raise children. My bicycle was stolen within my first two weeks in Denver. I didn’t like the city’s traffic and large groups of people. My needs are satisfied here. I was raised without ‘culture’ and I don’t need it. I waited just until my stock in the Denver company that employed me was vested, and then I moved back here. That meant leaving a Denver job paying $35,000 a year plus fringe benefits, and coming back here to earn $17,000 per year without any benefits. I was willing to give up the secure Denver job in order to be able to live in the valley, where I can hike. My wife had never experienced that insecurity, but I had always lived with that insecurity in the Bitterroot. Here in the Bitterroot, you have to be a two-income household in order to survive, and my parents always had to hold multiple odd jobs. I was prepared if necessary to take a nighttime job stocking groceries to earn money for my family. After we returned here, it took five years before I again had an income at my Denver level, and it was another year or two after that until I had health insurance.

“My business is mainly house construction, plus development of the less expensive parcels of raw land—I can’t afford to buy and develop high-end parcels. Originally, the lots that I developed used to be ranches, but most of them are no longer operating ranches by the time that I acquire them; they have already been sold, resold, and possibly subdivided several times since they were last farmed. They’re already out of production, and they carry knapweed rather than pasture.

“An exception is my current Hamilton Heights project, a 40-acre former ranch that I