Five Valleys Land Trust led a group of volunteers on April 27 to clean up a now closed, once heavily used, access point to the Bitterroot River in Missoula. The Missoulian article highlights the efforts by FVLT and others on the Buckhouse Bridge access site, which is located on private land and had been closed by the landowner because of “erosion, garbage and surface damage“ concerns. “The existing public use was causing damage to the site, and so the landowner was forced to temporarily shut it down,“ explained Ryan Chapin, the stewardship director for the nonprofit Five Valleys Land Trust. “There was a lot of garbage and the parking area was being misused. But the landowner does want to provide permanent access to the Bitterroot River across his property, so the Five Valleys Land Trust is working with government agencies to provide a well-designed access.”
