Select from the following to scroll down this page to your section of interest.
Government Agency ContactsAdvocacy, What We Do!
SCA Past Projects
Government Representative Contacts
Local Media Contacts
Our Partner Organizations in Conservation
CITIZENS PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE!
SCA’s position on Conservation of the Priest River:
Current SCA petitions for your signature consideration:
housing-development-threatens-coolin-warren-wetlands-south-priest-lake
support-the-northern-rockies-ecosystem-protection-act
Our goal is to promote regional natural resource stewardship & facilitate cooperative decision making on environmental issues & improve public lands policies through education & the promotion of grassroots activism. SCA works to cultivate an environmentally conscious and responsible public by actively engaging, educating & empowering our local citizens. Our greatest goal is to work with & educate the public on how they can create changes locally & address environmental degradation head on.
Why we need groups like SCA = Urgency
Recent changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act and other federal and state environmental regulations compounded with the effects of climate change and unchecked land use and development continue to threaten and harm the environmental health of our regional and national natural resources.
Now, more than ever, it is imperative that individuals and communities become active stewards of their local environments, conserving, protecting and restoring our land, air, forests & water.
This region supports habitat for a spectacularly beautiful and rare wide assemblage of wildlife and plant species that are found in no other ecosystem in the lower 48 states. SCA has worked tirelessly for the last 34 years advocating for the protection and conservation of these precious and finite systems, habitats and species via public speaking forums regional planning groups, boots on the ground restoration, public commenting, protests and stewardship programs.
Support of SCA’s Advocacy Program is especially hard to come by as many entities do not fund advocacy or public policy reform &oversight work. SCA is small & powered almost entirely by volunteers & is often overlooked by large funding entities. Due to COVID, funding is even harder to come by to support small grassroots environmental nonprofits, yet the need for environmental protection work is greater than ever. Due to SCA’s size & volunteer base, a small amount of funding goes a long way!
Our Advocacy Program work is ongoing annually. We closely monitor & comment on numerous land management/regulatory agency and local governments’ activities, projects, plans, etc. impacting the Priest Lake Watershed and lower Selkirk Mountains.
Links to government agencies:
Bonner County https://www.bonnercountyid.gov/
Pend Oreille Counties https://pendoreilleco.org/
Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ) https://www.deq.idaho.gov/
Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG) https://idfg.idaho.gov/
Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) https://www.idl.idaho.gov/
Idaho Department of Transportation Department (ITD) https://itd.idaho.gov/
Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) https://idwr.idaho.gov/
Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) https://agri.idaho.gov/main/
US Forest Service (USFS) https://www.fs.usda.gov/
The expected and historic outcome of increased public oversight and awareness of regulatory agency plans, policies, projects etc. is BETTER land management and stewardship of publically owned natural resources including land, air, wildlife, forestry, wetlands and water resources.
This all translates to increased conservation and protection of Selkirk Mountain threatened and endangered flora and fauna and the ecosystems that support them, the preservation of some of the largest and last undeveloped watershed complexes left in the contiguous continental US, permanent preservation of vast tracts of state and federal forested areas and old growth stands and the preservation of regional clean rivers, lakes and streams.
Advocacy, What We Do!
- Public sign-on letters to local, state and federal lawmakers and officials
- Oversight of regulatory agencies proposed plans & projects (i.e. County governments, IDEQ, USFS ,IDL and others)
- Oversight and commenting on local, state and federal plans, policies and projects that would negatively impact our regions land, air and water
- “Boots on the ground” cleanup events and restoration projects
We work to educate you so we can collectively encourage regulatory agencies, local, state and federal governments and officials to make informed decisions on issues that will negatively impact air, water, wildlife and land.
Past SCA projects
- Grizzly bears https://scawild.org/selkirk-grizly-bears
- Mountain Caribou https://scawild.org/south-selkirk-mountain-caribou/
- Forest advocacy
- Campground Safety https://scawild.org/selkirk-campground-safety-projects/
- HWY 57 Litter Clean-Up https://scawild.org/hwy-57-biannual-litter-cleanup/
- Hydroelectric Projects https://scawild.org/selkirk-hydroelectric-projects/
- Priest Lake Thoroughfare https://scawild.org/priest-lake-thorofare/
- Timber Sales and Wildfires https://scawild.org/selkirk-timber-sale-post-fire-monitoring/
YOU CAN HELP BY EMAILING, WRITING, CONTACTING
US Senators:
Mike Crapo crapo.senate.gov/
James Risch risch.senate.gov/public/
Bonner County Commissioners:
| Steven Bradshaw (District 1) | steven.bradshaw@bonnercountyid.gov |
| Jeff Connolly (District 2) | jeff.connolly@bonnercountyid.gov |
| Dan McDonald (District 3) | dan.mcdonald@bonnercountyid.gov |
Governor Brad Little – governor@gov.idaho.gov
-State Senator Jim Woodward – jwoodward@senate.idaho.gov
-State Representative Heather Scott –hscott@house.idaho.gov
Director, Department of Lands; Duston Miller –
-Chairman, Idaho Water Resource Board; Jeff Raybould –
-Director, Idaho Water Resources; Gary Spackman –gary.spackman@idwr.idaho.gov
-Area Manager, Priest Lake Supervisory Area;
Dan Brown DBrown@idl.idaho.gov
IDAHO FISH AND GAME DEPARTMENT
-Chairman, Idaho Fish and Game Commission; Greg Cameron –
MagicValleyCommissioner@idfg.idaho.gov
-Commissioner Panhandle Region; Dave Bobbitt –
panhandle.commissioner@idfg.idaho.gov
-Director Ed Schriever – ed.schriever@idfg.idaho.gov
I-DFG Panhandle Region Supervisor Charles Corsi –
-Deputy Director IDFG –
scott.reinecker@idfg.idaho.gov
Local Media
| Bonner Bee | Emily Bonsant | ebonsant@bonnercountydailybee.com | 208-263-9534 |
| CdA Press | https://cdapress.com/ | 208-664-8176 | |
| The Indlander | https://inlander.com/ | 509 325-0634 | |
| Keokee Publishing and Sandpoint Magazine | Chris Bessler, one time SCA ED and he is a member again | chrisb@keokee.com | 208-263-3573 |
| Newport Miner Gem State Miner | Sophia Aldous, Editor | minernews@povn.com | 509-447-9222 |
| Nickels Worth | Heather Eller – Publisher | heather@nickelsworth.com | (208) 667-2408 |
| Pecky Cox | Administers Priest lake Facebook Priest Lake Bulletin Board As the lake Churns | https://www.peckycox.com | 208-443-2240 |
| Spokesman Review | Eli Francovich, “Outdoors Reporter” | elif@spokesman.com | 509-459-5508 |
| Spokesman Review | Ted McDermott | tedm@spokesman.com | 509-638-5897 |
| The Beacon | Nick Ivie, Owner/Publisher | news@rivervalleybeacon.com nivie@rivervalleybeacon.com | |
| The Reader | Sandpoint Reader.com Submit news, events to Ben Olson, Publisher | ben@sandpointreader.com |
Partners in Conservation
Learn about other conservation organizations that work to protect the natural resources in and around the Selkirk ecosystem:
- Idaho Rivers The mission of Idaho Rivers United is to protect and restore the rivers of Idaho. Our focus is the ecological integrity of our rivers, but the lens we look through is citizen involvement.
- Friends of the Clearwater Friends of the Clearwater defends the Idaho Clearwater Bioregion’s wildlands and biodiversity through a Forest Watch program, litigation, grassroots public involvement, outreach and education.
- Bear Aware British Columbia strives to reduce the incidents of bear-human conflict through education, innovation and cooperation in the areas of Kaslo, Kimberley, Nelson, and in the Selkirk and Purcel Mountains.
- Kaniksu Land Trust is a land trust that works with landowners and organizations in the Clark Fork River and Lake Pend Oreille watersheds to protect, maintain and enhance natural resources and recreational values.
- Conservation Northwest works to protect and connect old-growth forests and other wild areas from the Washington Coast to the Rockies, including the Inland Temperate Rainforest.
- The Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness seek to preserve the Scotchmans, one of the last, and largest, wild areas in our region. Roughly 60 miles south of Canada, the 88,000 acre Scotchman Peaks roadless area spans the Idaho-Montana border.
- The Idaho Conservation League strives to preserve Idaho’s clean water, wilderness and quality of life through citizen action, public education, and professional advocacy.
- The Kootenai Environmental Alliance is the oldest non-profit conservation organization in Idaho. KEA’s mission is to conserve, protect and restore the environment with particular emphasis on the Idaho Panhandle and the Coeur d’Alene Basin.
- Pend Oreille Basin Commission, also known as the Lakes Commission, was created by the Idaho Legislature in 2003 to work on water quality and quantity issues in Lake Pend Oreille, Pend Oreille River, Priest Lake and Priest River.
- Rock Creen Alliance works to protect public lands and water resources from the impacts of hard rock mining in Idaho and western Montana.
- The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative – known as Y2Y – combines science and stewardship to ensure that the world-renowned wilderness, wildlife, native plants and natural processes of the Yellowstone to Yukon region continue to function as an interconnected web of life, now and for future generations.