State Parks & Recreation Board to hold special meeting June 5

HELENA – The Montana State Parks & Recreation Board will have a special meeting via Zoom on Wednesday, June 5, at 10 a.m.  

The board will discuss an amendment to an ARM rule to correct a date relating to a bonus point system for private permits and limits on nonresident permits on the Smith River. The department inadvertently referenced a June 15 date in the ARM rule as the end of the peak floating season, when that date should have been July 15 to correspond with the biennial rule provisions. 

In addition to the date correction, FWP is also proposing to adopt a pair of new rules to incorporate the commercial outfitter provisions currently in the biennial rule into this year’s ARM in the same fashion that the private float trips provisions were incorporated into ARM last year. The proposed rules would add a mechanism for reallocating commercial launches that may become available because of commercial use permit revocation, death of the permit holder, or the sale/transfer of a permitted business to an ineligible buyer/transferee. These launches initially would be reallocated among the other current permit holders through a random lottery. If any commercial launches remain available after the initial lottery, they would be made available to other licensed outfitters through a second random lottery process.

Public comment is open now and will run through June 4; to submit a comment online click here. To register to make a comment via Zoom during the meeting and for more information about the meeting, go to https://fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/parksandrecreationboard/june-2024-special-meeting.