As the Montana Rescue Mission (MRM) celebrates a new partnership, leaders are dealing with accusations against a former employee involving sexual abuse.

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Montana Rescue Mission responds to civil lawsuit

On Friday, officials with the MRM and RiverStone Health came together to celebrate the opening of a new clinic aimed at providing care for the homeless.

The clinic will take care of patients’ mental health, a service Montana Rescue Mission’s substance abuse counselor and social worker, Nate Church, provided until he was released in October of last year.

Eric Peterson, a Montana Rescue Mission board member, says the mission is aware it is named in a civil suit filed in February for negligence regarding sexaul-abuse allegations against Church.

“A civil suit, not so much a surprise, I guess, just because the allegations were something that had come up prior, so we were aware of the allegations,” said Peterson.

Peterson says the board and the administration were also aware that the state board of Behavioral Health had suspended Church’s licenses for inappropriate behavior with a client, but MRM hired him anyway.

“They had suspended his license for a period of time and then he had to go through some sort of a process to get it rehabilitated, which, from my understanding, he completed all of the steps to do that and was in good standing,” Peterson said.

While there are no current criminal charges filed against Church, Peterson says the mission talked with police earlier this week and says it’s important to take allegations and lawsuits seriously.

“Any time a victim is willing to come forward, they should be given the opportunity to pursue, pursue those claims, you know, through the legal process and everything, and I think that needs to play itself out,” said Peterson.

At the opening of the clinic, however, officials at RiverStone and the rescue mission were looking forward.

Riverstone Health has actually been doing “Health Care for the Homeless” since 1997, but the difference is everything will be in one building, making it easier for people to get there from the MRM.

“I thought it was a great idea to just centralize those services and bring everything right here to the South Side,” said Jon Forte, Riverstone Health president and CEO.

Forte says the clinic was at St. Vincent de Paul and on First Avenue North, but now this collaboration will make it easier for those who are homeless to take care of their health.

“Get folks treated for high blood pressure, maybe diagnose cancers or other oral health conditions and get them over to our dental clinic,” Forte said about taking care of people.

ROCK CREEK — Punch more roads through the forest, and you’ll get more people starting fires, fewer bull trout and an even heftier maintenance bill.

Keep the 2001 Roadless Rule in place, and you’ll ensure elk have a healthy habitat, and you’ll still be able to reduce wildfire risk.

Those were some of the arguments former U.S. Forest Service employees made Friday at the edge of the Silver King Inventoried Roadless Area east of Missoula.

Montana Trout Unlimited and the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers hosted the event as the Trump administration takes steps to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule.

The rule prohibits building roads and harvesting timber on 30% of Forest Service land in the country, or 60 million acres. In Montana, that’s 6.4 million acres, or 37% of Forest Service land in the state.

In June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, parent agency of the Forest Service, announced plans to rescind the rule, enacted at the end of the Clinton administration.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said doing so would help protect communities from fires, remove “burdensome” regulations, and help create productive forests.

A comment period in the fall resulted in 223,000 comments, with 99% opposed to repealing the rule, according to Trout Unlimited and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

Opponents of the rule, including Republican politicians from Montana, have argued it’s outdated and hamstrings forest managers’ abilities to do their jobs in a landscape that’s changed.

Proponents of the rule, including the groups that participated in the media event at Rock Creek, said the “roadless rule” is sometimes misunderstood, and it’s been effective for ensuring land is productive for wildlife and to protect social values.

They also noted it came to pass in 2001 after public meetings across the country.

At the time, the Forest Service held more than 600 public meetings, including 34 in Montana, the groups said. This time, it has no public meetings scheduled, so the groups also are putting on seven public meetings in Montana in March.

Jeff Lukas, with Montana Trout Unlimited, said roadless areas are some of the most productive for fish and wildlife habitat, and they support clean water and offer social and economic benefits.

“The rule is vital to protecting the backcountry experiences so many Montanans enjoy,” Lukas said. “It helps ensure good habitat for deer, elk and fish, it protects clean drinking water, and contributes to our quality of life in Montana.”

The rule still allows the Forest Service to plan timber harvests and fuel reductions, but it does so while upholding values Americans have expressed as a priority, such as preserving natural scenery and offering a place to get away, rule proponents said.

Brian Riggers, former Region 1 Roadless Coordinator for the Forest Service, said in his six or seven years working in roadless areas, he ran into few people who didn’t value those unique, untrammeled landscapes.

“Most people have sort of a heartfelt connection to those places,” Riggers said.

But he said those hunters, anglers, backpackers, even people just driving along and enjoying the view, don’t always know much about how the rule works.

And he said it’s important to know because once you develop an area, you can’t go back.

“The rule provides for science-based conservation of the characteristics that make unroaded areas unique — high water quality and wildlife habitat, scenic integrity, remote recreation opportunities and buffers” from more developed areas, Riggers said.

At the same time, Riggers said, the rule is flexible. If a fire is imminent, and a road is needed in an emergency, the rule won’t prohibit it.

“I’ve not seen any fire projects not allowed to move forward due to the rule,” Riggers said.

Montana’s congressional delegation has supported the repeal of the “roadless rule,” as has Gov. Greg Gianforte, all Republicans. They argue it gives the federal agency more tools to manage the forest and helps rural economies.

Riggers said the rule was born out of controversy and was meant to help resolve it.

In the past, Riggers said, every time the Forest Service would propose a project, people would fight about it, and the rule was meant to help eliminate individual fights and provide a framework that would take care of people’s concerns for the long term.

The group spoke near the Tyler’s Kitchen Fuels Reduction and Forest Health Project to point out the “roadless rule” in action, an example of the exceptions the rule offers to actively manage forests.

Finalized by the Lolo National Forest in December, the Tyler’s Kitchen project includes a timber harvest, a prescribed burn and thinning on more than 2,000 acres to reduce wildfire risk and improve the forest.

Speakers noted the benefits of the rule, but they also pointed to problems with roads on Forest Service land and the idea of building more roads.

For one thing, roads cost money, and the Forest Service doesn’t have the dollars to pay for maintenance on the ones already built, said Riggers — the cost of the backlog is $6.4 billion nationally, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.

Roads also hurt fish, said Shane Hendrickson, a fish biologist who formerly worked for the Forest Service. In fact, he said, roadless areas are “imperative” for native fish species, such as bull trout, which need clear cold water to survive.

Cutting roads into forest land “drastically” affects the watershed, taking away its resiliency, he said. He said protected bull trout aren’t present in waterways in roaded areas in a sustainable way.

Some politicians argue roads are needed to increase fire responsiveness, but Julie Shea, a former fire planner for the Forest Service with 39 years and 10 months of service, said she doesn’t wholly buy the argument.

Some places that already have roads aren’t accessible for fire anyway depending on the terrain, she said. Also, especially in the West, more than 75% of fires are caused by humans, so more roads could mean more fires in the places they’re built, she said.

The main thing, though, is the rule represents the will of the people, and people are smart, Shea said.

The recent Conservation in the West poll showed 84% of voters believe the rollback of laws that protect land, water and wildlife is a serious problem.

“It’s about the right of all Montanans and United States citizens to have a voice,” Shea said.