Big Hole National Battlefield Administrative History

Chapter Six:
The "Natural Scene": Natural and Cultural Resource Protection

The Cultural Resources Management Plan also reflected the battlefield's long-standing definition of the "natural scene" as a significant cultural resource. In response to federal environmental legislation, particularly the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), and of service-wide environmental initiatives, park service personnel increasingly included identification and protection of natural resources (in contrast to the "natural [historic] scene") in the battlefield preservation plan. In broad terms, NEPA defined "a national policy . . . to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man." As carefully defined, the environment included "historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage." To that end, NEPA stipulated a "systematic, interdisciplinary" review of natural and social science data to assist in planning and in decisionmaking, or – as interpreted in practice and regulation – Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Studies. [23]

As with passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, compliance with NEPA dramatically redefined management, use, and development of all federally owned land. Within the context of this management transition, Big Hole Battlefield was unique only in the degree to which preservation of cultural resources was synonymous with preservation of natural resources. Park service staff continued to evaluate the "historic scene" as the overriding cultural resource of concern. Montana State Historic Preservation Officer Sherfy commended Schulmeyer on his "clear description of the park's cultural resource as its natural resource and praised the park's proposed long-term treatment of the natural scene as "clearly and concretely planned." [24]

In 1981, the park service contracted with John Pierce, University of Montana School of Forestry, to complete a vegetation study of the battlefield (similar to that first proposed by Clyde Maxey in 1963). As described by the park service, the study was designed to provide base line data of species composition, relative abundance, and distribution on the battlefield. This baseline information was then used to assess the possible impact of management actions to native flora and fauna. Schulmeyer noted that "it is only with the development of the baseline data that it becomes possible to determine the degree, the location, and biological process of succession." Armed with this information, Schulmeyer pursued an aggressive course of action. [25]

Park service personnel had long lamented the changes in vegetative cover, particularly the willow growth of the bottomland, the second-growth lodgepole pine of the Siege Area, and the second-growth encroaching upon the Horse Pasture/sagebrush steppe. Pierce's analysis, based upon field study and historical research, established that prior to the battle and until substantial settlement of the Big Hole Valley in the 1890s fire had burned through the willow bottoms every eight to ten years. These fires were part of the natural cycle; the altered and deteriorated willow community was both historically inappropriate and unnatural, representing "over 100 years of human interference in the natural process of fire." [26]

In an era when federal land management agencies increasingly used fire as part of an integrated approach to resource management, Al Schulmeyer proposed the use of controlled burns to return the battlefield to an approximation of 1877 conditions. In preparation of his "Environmental Assessment, Willow Control, Big Hole National Battlefield," Schulmeyer consulted with Pierce, an ecologist, a biologist, a prehistoric archeologist, a historic archeologist, an historian, a wildlife specialist, a NEPE/NHPA compliance officer from the Rocky Mountain Region, and the Montana State Historic Preservation Officer. Resource management at Big Hole National Battlefield was an increasingly multi-disciplinary affair. [27]

The final environmental assessment established that controlled burns would recreate the historic scene and recreate wildlife habitat. Ideally, the heat of the fire would remove the dead materials, return nutrients to the soil, and stimulate willow regrowth. The only threatened plant within the river bottom, penstemon lemhiensis, had been shown to respond well to fire. Assessed alternatives to fire included "No Action," whereby the continued "denseness and age [of the willow community] would drive away the wildlife . . . and hinder effective understanding of the [battle]; chemical treatment, effective in killing the overgrowth yet also fatal to the root crown (and demanding removal of all dead material; and mechanical removal, dismissed as too labor intensive and visually intrusive (as "the cut ends would be apparent, and regrowth would not be rapidly stimulated)." In 1985, the park service received clearance to proceed with the controlled fire alternative. [28]

Reconstruction of the eroded riverbank adjacent to the Encampment Area also required an assessment of associated environmental impacts. In 1973 Schulmeyer directed removal of a driftwood and beaver dam that had caused the North Fork of the Big Hole River to abrade into the Nez Perce Encampment Area. This effort proved insufficient and a 100-yard reach of the North Fork River continued to erode, threatening archeological resources and altering the historic battle scene. The NPS considered four alternative proposals to control the erosion and evaluated the associated impact to natural- and cultural-resource values. The no-action alternative, Alternative 1, would require acceptance "of the loss of the historic scene." Alternative 2, substantial and expensive rip-rap of the eroded bank with concrete or stone, would control the immediate threat to archeological resources yet would also intrude upon the natural and historic scene. It was dismissed as quickly as Alternative 1. Planting additional willow along the river's edge, Alternative 3, would stall the erosion without environmental impact yet would also exacerbate the existing problem of willow overgrowth and would introduce additional management costs associated with annual vista clearings. The park service, with SHPO concurrence, determined that Alternative 4, construction of seven synthetic beaver dams at points subject to the force of high water river flow, most effectively "protected the natural scene which is the historic scene." Officials with the Rocky Mountain Regional Office and the Montana State Historic Preservation Office, found that Alternative 4 would have no significant impact on the natural or historic environment. [29]

Additional land-base proposals initiated by Schulmeyer yet not completed during his tenure included selective thinning of the Siege Area, based on baseline (1877) data provided by Pierce; a controlled burn on Battle Mountain to eliminate the lodgepole pine encroaching on the Horse Pasture Area; and removal of two beaver dams that diverted water from the historically swampy land between the Encampment and Siege areas. Restoration of the abandoned road cuts and irrigation ditches also remained a park goal. These projects were included in the draft 1984 Cultural Resources Management Plan and were approved between 1986 and 1987, following findings of no significant impact (FONSI). They were not funded and initiated until the 1990s. [30]