By DARYL GADBOW of the Missoulian

The Blackfoot Community Project, a local effort to preserve and manage 42,927 acres of former Plum Creek Timber Co. lands in the Blackfoot Valley, is in line to receive a big boost in the 2006 federal budget.

The Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee has included $7.4 million in its 2006 budget for the Blackfoot project, according to Montana Sen. Conrad Burns' office.

"This is great news for the Blackfoot because it moves us farther along in shaping the future of our valley," said Jim Stone, Ovando rancher and chairman of the Blackfoot Challenge, the landowner group leading the project.

The Blackfoot Community Project involves the purchase of Plum Creek lands and their resale to public agencies and private buyers under conservation easements as a way to protect the community's natural and rural heritage. The Blackfoot Challenge has worked on the project in partnership with the Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit conservation organization.

So far, the conservancy has acquired 42,927 acres in the Blackfoot Valley from Plum Creek, and is in the process of reselling them.

The $7.4 million funding, if approved by President Bush, would include $6 million for the Forest Service to acquire some of the lands purchased from Plum Creek by the Nature Conservancy last fall. The project plan expressed support for public ownership of some of the lands as a way to preserve public access.

Another $1.4 million would be used to purchase conservation easements from Blackfoot landowners who purchase lands as part of the project.

In addition, the project is retaining land surrounding Ovando Mountain that will be maintained as a community-managed conservation area.

The Nature Conservancy has an option to purchase an additional 45,000 acres of Plum Creek land if enough public and private funding can be raised.

"We are grateful to Conrad Burns, who has supported this project from the beginning, and continues to do so," said Stone. "He knows that the project reflects the values of the local communities to conserve access, grazing, natural resources and our rural way of life in this valley."

Burns is the chairman of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. The budget won't be final until the Interior Appropriations bill goes through a conference committee and is signed by the president, which usually occurs in the fall, according to Burns' office.

Reporter Daryl Gadbow can be reached at 523-5264 or at dgadbow@missoulian.com