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Butte‑Silver Bow officials pledge mitigation after log staging buries features at Basin Creek Historic Park
Summary
Preservationists told the Historic Preservation Commission that helicopter‑logging staging left slash piles and heavy‑equipment damage at Basin Creek Historic Park; Butte‑Silver Bow Public Works apologized and pledged to remove slash, fence feature areas and rebuild the lawn under a BNRC grant while helicopter operations continue.
At the March 3, 2026 meeting of the Butte‑Silver Bow Historic Preservation Commission, local preservationists raised alarms that helicopter‑logging landings and log staging for a fuels‑reduction project have smothered and damaged historic features in Basin Creek Historic Park.
"The lawn is about two‑thirds covered with cut logs and slash piles," said Mitzi Rossillon, who described heavy equipment driving over a collapsed historic wood‑stave fence and burying two of three early‑20th‑century concrete picnic firepits, a water barrel and a later spigot and vent pipe. Mary McCormick, who also spoke, said she and Rossillon mapped features listed in the National Register nomination and that many are now obscured by staging activity.
HPO Kate McCourt told the commission that the Basin Creek watershed provides roughly 60% of Butte’s water and that the fuels‑reduction work — declared an emergency by U.S. Forest Service representatives — has involved helicopter logging to remove beetle‑killed trees. Jim Keenan, Butte‑Silver Bow (BSB) Water Superintendent, said helicopter landings ran from November through March 1 and are scheduled to resume in mid‑June.
BSB Public Works Director Mark Neary apologized to the commission for not notifying the HPO before the crew used the park as a landing site. "The logging crew asked if they could land the logs in the park and after discussing it we agreed to it," Neary said. He told the commission the park is closed and will remain so while logging continues — approximately two to three years — and that BSB intends to remove slash from areas that contain historic features, fence those areas, and fully re‑do the lawn as part of a BNRC‑funded restoration (the HPO described the BNRC grant as more than $700,000). Neary said an RFP for restoration work will be issued soon and Parks & Recreation Director Shawn Fredrickson will present improvement plans to HPC.
Preservationists told the commission that the project should have triggered Section 106 review because federal funds and agencies are involved; McCormick said a cultural‑resources professional should have flagged and cordoned off the features before work began. "There was no consideration to mitigate adverse effects by avoiding them," McCormick said, noting that the DNRC and U.S. Forest Service are funders or partners on portions of the project.
Commissioner Russell O’Leary pressed BSB staff on funding sources and process, noting that much of the fuels‑work money comes via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 and that Section 106 consultation appears not to have occurred, which will require mitigation steps. Commissioner Bobbi Stauffer asked that the issue be revisited at the next HPC meeting with a formal recommendation and a mitigation plan.
The commission did not take a formal vote on the Basin Creek staging itself. Next steps recorded at the meeting include issuance of an RFP for lawn restoration, BSB commitments to remove slash from feature areas and fence them off during restoration, and a planned presentation by Director Fredrickson to the HPC on park improvement plans.
