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Photo: Fishing the scenic Yellowstone River. Courtesy Drew Winterer.

Every angler knows the feeling. The trip has gone longer than expected. You're tired, sick, hungry and wet. All you want to do is get home and get in your own bed. But then a new river appears, with new fish and a different landscape. Even though you're in a hurry, you try a few casts. Clark and his men must have felt this way heading down the Yellowstone River on their return trip. They knew they had to get to the Missouri junction soon, and all the men wanted to do was get back to St. Louis, but they must have been impressed by the Yellowstone River. This spectacular waterway flows unfettered through a half-dozen major mountain ranges and drains a large chunk of Montana and part of Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming. Still free of dams (the Yellowstone is the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states) that have plagued the west since Lewis and Clark's expedition, the river retains much of its historic identity.

Conservation Update The Yellowstone River and the greater Yellowstone ecosystem have many varied threats, including inappropriate land use, dams and other impoundments, inappropriate agricultural practices, inappropriate timber harvests, coal bed methane development, mining, and oil and gas development. Coal bed methane is one of the most significant and destructive threats today. Coal bed methane is a form of natural gas held in coal seams by water pressure. Each man-made well will pump huge volumes of water out of the ground; as the area is "dewatered," the salty water discharge is then released into our rivers, threatening fisheries, wildlife, downstream irrigation, and drinking water. Ninety-three million gallons of water a day could be pumped out of Montana's groundwater and dumped into Montana's prized rivers and streams if a Bureau of Land Management proposal to drill thousands of coal bed methane wells is allowed. The BLM recently finalized their plans to allow massive coal bed development across southern Montana-primarily in many of the rivers and streams that drain into the Yellowstone River. Legal challenges are now underway to seek injunctive relief to the decision of the Montana Director of the Bureau of Land Management to authorize coal bed methane development in the Billings and Powder River Resource Areas of Montana. The final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) predicts 10,000 to 26,000 wells in Montana in the next 20 years, over 90 percent of which will be drilled in Rosebud, Powder River, and Big Horn Counties-primarily drainages of the Yellowstone River. Along with the wells, the final EIS forecasts 9,000 miles of new roads, 28,000 miles of pipelines and power lines, impacts to wildlife on between 884,000 and 4.7 million acres of land, 4,000 high-sodium wastewater impoundments, lowering of aquifers by 240 to 600 feet across the Powder River Basin, and loss of springs, water wells, and seeps to which farmers and ranchers have water rights. You can write the Montana Board of Environmental Review and the Montana office of the Bureau of Land Management. E-mail the Montana Board of Environmental Review at ber@state.mt.us and ask members to support strong numeric standards for sodium and salinity. Write or e-mail the BLM at: Bureau of Land Management Montana/Dakotas State Office 5001 Southgate Drive P.O. Box 36800 Billings, Montana 59107 406-896-5000 http://www.blmfeedback.com/select.php?Montana Who to contact: The Bozeman, Montana, Sierra Club Office P.O. Box 1290 Bozeman, MT 59771 406-582-8365 david.ellenberger@sierraclub.org Find out more: The Greater Yellowstone Coalition Montana River Action Other resources: Greater Yellowstone Flyfishers Yellowstone Angler