Tracy Stone-Manning

Tracy Stone-Manning

Tracy Stone-Manning is an environmental activist who was a prominent member of designated terror group Earth First!, who was involved in a tree spiking case in 1989 and advocated for population control in her graduate thesis.

Tracy Stone-Manning is Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Department of Interior.

Earth First!

Screenshot of June 21 1991 Earth First! Publication highlighting Editor Tracy Stone-Manning

The Earth First! newsletter billed itself as the "Radical Environmental Journal". Tracy Stone-Manning was listed as an editor of the publication.

Tree Spiking

Letter from Biden Bureau Of Land Management Nominee Tracy Stone-Manning

An article posted at the Daily Caller describes Tracy Stone-Manning's involvement with a tree spiking case.

Stone-Manning told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in writing in May that she had never been the target of a federal criminal investigation, but numerous news reports, accounts of federal law enforcement officials and statements from Stone-Manning herself at the time of the tree-spiking incident and subsequent criminal trial strongly suggest she was a target of the federal government’s investigation.

Stone-Manning received legal immunity to testify in the 1993 criminal trial over the matter that she sent an anonymous and threatening letter to the Forest Service warning that a local forest had been sabotaged with tree spikes. Her testimony led to the conviction of a man she identified as her former roommate and friend.

Tree spiking, which The Washington Post and other news outlets have described as an 'eco-terrorism' tactic, is a form of sabotage in which metal spikes are nailed into trees to make them unsafe to log. If gone unnoticed, tree spikes can cause serious injuries for workers.

The Montana Kaimin reported in October 1989 that Stone-Manning was among the seven individuals who were served with subpoenas and forced to provide fingerprints, palm prints, handwriting samples and hair samples to a federal grand jury investigating the matter.

Stone-Manning herself was quoted in a 1990 news article expressing her anger at the 'degrading' experience the FBI subjected her to during their investigation.

From the Washington Post:

Stone-Manning described in testimony that she had no formal or financial role in Earth First! but participated in meetings and activities. On one occasion, she joined a street theater performance outside the Federal Building in Missoula in 1989, where activists appeared in costumes as “Eco Rangers,” asking people to take oaths to protect the Earth. In local news coverage back then, she was sometimes referred to as an Earth First spokesperson.

Another person who sometimes showed up to those events was John Blount, known around town as 'Spicer.' He was not a student at the school and he had no job, but he hung around the environmental crowd. Friends from that time recalled him showing up in camouflage to protests and calling himself 'tree fart.'

In April 1989, John Blount, Jeff Fairchild and others drove to a swath of forest known as the Post Office Creek Sale and hammered metal spikes into dozens of Douglas fir, cedar and ponderosa pine trees. It was an illegal tactic intended to deter logging because the spikes can mangle chain saws and maim loggers.

[...]

The four-paragraph letter she mailed put it more bluntly. Signed 'George Hayduke' — the fictional hero of Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel, 'The Monkey Wrench Gang,' about a group plotting to blow up a dam — it said that 500 pounds of eight- to 10-inch spikes had been pounded into the trees because 'this piece of land is very special to the earth. It is home to the Elk, Deer, Mountain Lions, Birds, and especially the Trees.'

The postscript warned: 'You bastards go in there anyway and a lot of people could get hurt.'

Director of the Department of Environmental Quality

From a December, 2012 article from MTPR [Montana Public Radio] news:

Incoming Montana Governor Steve Bullock has announced his selection for Director of the Department of Environmental Quality.

Bullock has chosen Tracy Stone-Manning, a former natural resources adviser to Senator Jon Tester who was the lead staffer on Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. Stone-Manning also previously served as the Executive Director of the Clark Fork Coalition and the Five Valleys Land Trust in Missoula. Governor-Elect Bullock says Stone-Manning has worked with people of diverse backgrounds across the state.

“To do that,” Bullock said, “Tracy has had to build coalitions with groups not always used to sitting at the same table, from the logging industry to wilderness advocates. And it will always take in addition to firm and good administration that sort of bringing people together in coalition building to continue the work done at DEQ.”

Stone-Manning will replace outgoing DEQ Director Richard Opper. She says she wants to continue building on his work.

“And I look forward to creating a place and continuing a place where there is a permitting process that is fair, that is predictable that delivers both jobs and the protected landscapes that we so enjoy,” she said.

Steve Bullock will be sworn in as Montana’s next Governor January 7th. He has been periodically announcing members of his cabinet through the interim.

Bio

Bio from American Environmental Leaders:

When she was eighteen, one of her brothers took her camping and she slept outdoors for the first time. Tracy says this experience literally changed her life, bringing out a strong interest in nature and the environment. After she acquired a B.A. in Radio and Television from the University of Maryland, an increased interest in environmentalism led her to think about a degree in science, to use her communication skills to translate what scientists were finding. She spent a year at the University of Exeter in Devon, England. There she gained a new perspective on American conservation versus a European ethic. Stone said she realized America has so many wild places, whereas in England, which she walked across, she never had to carry a tent because she could always get to the next town. On returning stateside, she received an internship with the National Wildlife Foundation in D.C., in the public affairs office. But Stone wanted to be more engaged in action than in talking about it.

She applied to the University of Montana’s environmental studies program, which was the only environmental studies program with an advocacy component. While visiting Montana she suddenly felt at home. Back in Washington, D.C., to care about the environment was considered “quaint.” In Montana the environment was the residents’ bread and butter. After receiving an M.S. in Environmental Studies, she worked as a consultant and freelance writer and married Richard Manning, an environmental writer. In short order, she became the director of the Five Valley Land Trust, launched a campaign to use public funds to buy a mountain on the edge of Missoula, and began community work for various nonprofits, including Defenders of Wildlife, the organization Ecotrust, based in Oregon, where she ran the program for a year and a half but always craned for Montana.

In 1998, she launched Headwater News, an online clip service for the Rocky Mountain region. At this time she also joined the board of the Clark Fork Coalition (CFC). In 1999 Stone-Manning became the Executive Director determined to implement what she had learned at Ecotrust and move the organization from mere advocacy work to community building. Stone-Manning and her staff set out to practice conservation in a different way than it had been approached before, in order to take away the stereotype that conservationists were elitists who don’t care about people. Instead, they sought to portray the environment as the life and the future of the community. Stone-Manning said the staff at CFC tried very hard to make the work they did accessible, understandable, and vital to a much larger constituency. The primary mission of the CFC is to preserve and restore the upper Clark Fork River, running from Butte, Montana, to Sandpoint, Idaho. Butte was once considered the “richest hill on earth” with its enormous copper deposit, and was mined for over a century. Before environmental regulation, the Butte copper mine piled up their tailings next to the Clark Fork River. With flooding, all those tailings rushed 140 miles downstream to the Milltown Dam. Six million cubic yards of mineral sediments, iron, manganese, copper and arsenic built up behind the dam. In 1983 the full 140 miles of the Clark Fork River south of Butte was listed as an EPA Superfund site which included a reservoir of drinking water at the Milltown Dam.

When the Clark Fork Coalition was founded in 1985, its first act was to add the entire upper river listed to the Superfund site. In 1996, an enormous ice jam on the Blackfoot River threatened the Milltown Dam. Terrified dam owners dumped the reservoir, with hopes of grinding the ice jam to a halt. But large chunks of ice coming down the Clark Fork River kicked up over the dam, resulting in an enormous fish kill, between 50 percent to 85 percent of fish in some species. Only then did Montanans learn that the dam was holding back toxic waters which could spill over and kill the fish population. When Stone-Manning took on the position of Executive Director of the CFC in 1999, she recognized that the dam only generated 1.3 megawatts of electricity, and left fish endangered and potable water problems. Her proposed solution, considered crazy at first, was to take out the dam. By 2003, 10,000 Montana citizens had gotten behind the idea and Republican Governor Judy Mart called for the removal of the dam and the cleanup of the reservoir.

Tracy Stone-Manning attributes the success of this campaign to the residents of Montana seeing this issue as a community and health issue, instead of an isolated environmental issue. She said that once people realized their drinking water and their fish population were at risk, they got over the idea of taking a dam out as being anti-progress. The Coalition’s work resulted in toxic sediments being dug out and a major cleanup of the Clark Fork River. In early 2007, Stone-Manning left her position as Executive Director of the CFC when newly elected Senator Jon Tester asked her to run his Missoula field office where she now advises on natural resources, especially forest health issues. “After years of pushing from the outside, now I’m seeing how it runs from the inside,” said Stone-Manning of her new position. Tracy Stone-Manning lives with her husband Richard in Missoula, Montana, while remaining indirectly active in her hometown of Washington, D.C. BIBLIOGRAPHY Personal interview, 1/24/08; www.clarkfork.org; www.westernwateralliance.org; www.fvlt.org; www.headwatersnews.org; www. semesterinthewest.org/pivot/entry.php?id=63& w=journal#body; www.missoulanews.com/ News/News.

Background

Tracy Stone-Manning served as senior advisor for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation, she advocates for the wise stewardship of our nation’s lands and waters. Before joining the Federation, she served as Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s chief of staff, where she oversaw day-to-day operations of his cabinet and the state’s 11,000 employees. She stepped into that post after serving as the Director of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, overseeing the state’s water, air, mining and remediation programs. She served as a regional director and senior advisor to Senator Jon Tester during his first term, focusing on forestry issues. Early in her career, she led the Clark Fork Coalition, a regional conservation group, as it advocated successfully for Superfund cleanups that created thousands of jobs and revitalized a river. The group also co-owned and managed a cattle ranch in the heart of the Superfund site.