Initially formed by a small group of local environmentalists concerned about resource extraction on public lands, PCEC has since become increasingly involved in issues related to the Yellowstone River and adjacent private lands. Our group’s early victories include:
• helping to draft and secure approval of the Park County Comprehensive Plan that was designed to guide land-use planning throughout the county.
• demonstrating the need for city officials to develop and adopt a Wellhead Protection Ordinance to insure the safety of the Livingston’s drinking water.
• achieving the implementation of an open space ordinance that sets aside 45% of the proceeds from the sale of city land to purchase additional open space.
• promoting the adoption of a city sign ordinance to stave off the proliferation of large billboards and signs throughout the city of Livingston.
• obtaining the inclusion of nearby Mount Rae in a wilderness proposal bill.
• organizing a local recycling program.
More recently, PCEC has been successful in:
• garnering a Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) from the EPA to oversee the cleanup of a Superfund Site in Livingston, where the mishandling of fuel and solvents at the Burlington Northern Rail Yard over a 100-year period resulted in contamination of the aquifer and adjacent Yellowstone River.
• prevailing in a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers for failing to consider the cumulative effects of bank stabilization projects on the Yellowstone’s riparian habitat and world-class fishery.
• helping to found the Yellowstone River Coalition, comprised of 18 organizations working to rally support for reform of current river management practices.
• raising public and political consciousness of the need for land-use planning to guide growth in Park County by commissioning and distributing a build-out analysis of development trends in Paradise Valley.
• winning a lawsuit to prevent road construction through a pristine wetland area to a private land inholding within the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area.
• partnering with other groups to force the Forest Service to improve groundwater protection at the New World Mine Reclamation Site near Yellowstone National Park’s northeast border.
• facilitating a collaboration between the Forest Service and county to build a bear-proof garbage transfer station in Cooke City to prevent further bear mortalities resulting from habituation to human food supplies.
• prevailing in a lawsuit to force the Gallatin National Forest and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to close off-road vehicle trails in core grizzly habitat and limit user-created trails throughout the grizzly bear recovery zone until they have determined whether the machines are affecting bear behavior.
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