Across more than 460,000 acres in Helena-Lewis & Clark and Beaverhead-Deerlodge national forests, the U.S. Forest Service oversees nearly 44% of Jefferson County. Add Bureau of Land Management parcels and more than 52% of our county is run by the federal government.
That’s a greater share than all seven neighboring counties, which means a reduced federal presence is likely to be more keenly felt in Jefferson than in most of the rest of southwest Montana. Yet two weeks into the government shutdown, the extent to which staffing and services across our prized public lands have been impacted remains unclear.
Multiple emails to BLM last week went unanswered for several days. And an Oct. 5 email to Chiara Cipriano, the helpful Public Affairs Officer for HLCNF, triggered this auto reply: “I am on furlough without access to email due to the lapse in federal government funding.”
