Silver Creek talks may expand protection
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
If preliminary negotiations bear fruit, the entire upper
stretch of Silver Creek, from many of the springs that feed the creek to
just northeast of Picabo, may soon be protected.
The Nature Conservancy’s southcentral Idaho program
manager Mike Stevens oversees Silver Creek Preserve, which protects some
9,500 acres of the Silver Creek drainage through easements and outright
ownership.
Stevens said he would not disclose details about the
sensitive negotiations, but added that if protection is achieved for the
area downstream from the Point of Rocks public access site, north of
Highway 20, the pieces of the upper Silver Creek puzzle will be nearly all
in place.
There are three properties on the leg of Silver Creek that
loops north of the highway. The preserve has an easement on one, another
is owned by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the other, the most
downstream property, is in the area called Point of Rocks.
"That ranch is the last unprotected ranch on the main
stretch of the creek, which the conservancy has worked on for so many
years," Stevens said. "It’s going to be much more exciting if
we get that agreement."
Stevens said there are both ecological and practical
benefits to the purchase of conservation easements.
Ecologically, the entire system benefits from the
preservation of its riparian attributes and lack of fragmentation of
habitat, he said.
"The practical reality," he added, "is that
there’s no way the conservancy would be able to buy the whole valley.
"All these easements have been voluntarily donated.
It’s really an extraordinary legacy the landowners down here have
created."
The Nature Conservancy owns 883 acres and has over 20
easements on 8,500 acres, all of which comprise the Silver Creek Preserve.
This year is the 25th anniversary of the preserve and of
The Nature Conservancy of Idaho. The state branch of the organization was
born when it purchased the Sun Valley Ranch, the original part of Silver
Creek Preserve.
