"Ennis Community Asks the FWP Commission Stand Down"

The Ennis business community and residents of the Madison Valley, in the interest of the economic viability of our small town, are asking that the FWP Commission stand with our community at this time and deny FWP Region 3's request to put their EA draft of June 2020 out for public comment.

Our community is still reeling from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economy is at risk of taking another devastating blow due to FWP Region 3 and FOAM putting forth their proposal on Friday May 29th at 4:49pm. Because of the extremely short amount of time this left the community to respond, we have prepared this petition for our community members to sign. This petition creates a voice for people working tirelessly to meet Governor Bullock's social distancing recommendations by allowing business owners to continue to operate and their employees to continue to earn a living during these extremely difficult economic times.

WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVELIHOODS. RIGHT. NOW. These are truly unprecedented times. Ennis is just trying to find a way to ensure that our businesses and community can survive. Many businesses have just opened their doors for the first time in the past 3 months and people are just returning to work as businesses are faced with new regulations and guidelines. How do we protect ourselves and our staff? Do I have to lay off my staff? The national economic fallout from the virus and subsequent lockdowns, travel restrictions, and uncertainty that travel will commence at all this summer are questions we face daily.

The everyday tasks of putting one foot in front of the other, making the right decisions for our businesses, staff, and families is overwhelming. These added responsibilities are hard enough and leaving a community whose economy is reliant on fishing-based tourism such a short time period (10 days) to respond is unfathomable. The time constraint alone is insurmountable. We simply do not have the time to even calculate the potential economic downturn this pandemic will place on the tourism industry, much less conceive an adequate response to these regulations.

Due to Madison Valley's volatile seasonality, we haven't witnessed the hard part yet as the true measure of economic damage will be revealed this fall, winter, and spring. We are an outdoor recreation community supported by our non-resident traffic in the summer. Our business community and working citizens struggle in the winter and cannot wait until the weather changes which brings an influx of tourists and 2nd homeowners to the valley and revitalizes the local economy. Currently, our community revenue as a whole is down due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some businesses are reporting a 30-70% decrease of revenue from a year ago.

John Way, MT Board of Outfitters, said that they are working on their budget for the year and expect to see a grave amount of guides and outfitters to be gone after this year; they won't be able to survive this pandemic.

Any attempt to impose regulations on the Madison River at this point without careful consideration and research into the impact COVID-19 will have on the town of Ennis and surrounding community is irresponsible and risks causing irreparable harm to a majority of businesses and families who rely on fishing and related tourism.

We will be joining others in participating demanding the Commission stand down on any further efforts to restrict the fishery on the Madison river.  This allows us to attend to our own lives without the threat of further economic hardship at the hands of an out fo control public agency.

We encourage you to send your comments to these people if you feel the need to engage further.

Senator Jeff Welborn jeff.welborn@mtleg.gov
Representative Tom Welch twelch1213@gmail.com
Legislator Ray Shaw ray.shaw@mtleg.gov
Fish Wildlife and Parks Commission:
-Pat Byorth fwpdistrict2@gmail.com
-Tim Aldrich cartim8@gmail.com
-Richard Stuker rstuker@itsTriangle.com
-Logan Brower lwbrower@yahoo.com
-Shane Colton. scolton@yellowstonelaw.com
-Director Martha Williams. Martha.Williams@mt.gov
-FWP Commission. fwcomm@mt.gov
MOGA Mac Minard moga@mt.net (Montana Outfitters and Guides Association)
FOAM Mike Bias mikebias@3rivers.net, mike@foam-mt.org (Fishing Outfitters Association of Montana)
FOAM Jason Fleury jason@foam-mt.org
Brian McGeehan brian@montanaangler.com