Last week, a couple of rather pointed letters to the editor appeared in local newspapers in response to Commissioner Gary Hall's missive that appeared in the April 24 edition of the Hungry Horse News. The full text of Hall's letter is available here. Hall is in favor of paving the North Fork Road as far as the Camas Creek entrance to Glacier Park. He also announced a couple of meetings related to this issue. The first is on May 21st. It was originally scheduled to be held in the conference room at Freedom Bank, but has since been moved to the North Valley Hospital Community Center, which is a couple of blocks north of Smith's in Columbia Falls. The second meeting is the "reveal" of the short-term North Fork Road dust study conducted last summer and paid for by the NFRCHS. It will be held in the County Commissioner's meeting room on June 9th.
Both letters take a jaundiced view of spending big money on a section of the North Fork Road when the need is so much greater elsewhere. The full text of the letters follows...
This letter from Don Sullivan, titled "Hall needs to explain view on paving of North Fork Road," appeared in the Daily Inter Lake on May 13, 2008.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all comes County Commissioner Gary Hall's comments on road dust and paving that appeared in a recent issue of the Hungry Horse News. No doubt valley residents who live on unpaved roads would have been upset—if not outraged—had they read them.
After the furor over the problems of road dust on unpaved roads in the valley and the county's announced plan to treat all unpaved county roads equally, Hall writes—ostensibly in response to a letter from Columbia Falls banker Joe Francini—"I am completely in favor of paving the North Fork (Road) as far as Camas Creek." Now where, some might ask, does the North Fork Road go? To Polebridge, year-round population of 10, or maybe 12.
Mr. Hall, who is running for re-election as commissioner, goes on to say, "Currently, I am working closely with the North Fork Road Coalition for Health and Safety to bring all government parties to the table." He says he is planning a meeting for May 21 at the Columbia Falls bank owned by Mr. Francini and hopes to "come away from that meeting with a solid plan for dust mitigation or paving of the North Fork Road."
Hall says a report on road dust studies conducted last summer will be given and his comments infer that he is concerned about the health, safety and welfare of county citizens.
The thousands of valley taxpayers who live on unpaved roads, eat dust day in and day out to get to work and take the kids to school, may wonder why Hall is more concerned about the health and safety of the hundred or so folks who live up the North Fork than he is about them and their kids. They may question why they should pay for paving a road that out-of-staters use a few times each summer to get to their million dollar vacation homes. They may wonder why this meeting Hall is having is in a bank in Columbia Falls and not a public venue in Kalispell or Whitefish—and why they weren't invited.
They may wonder if that county road dust plan the commissioners announced in January is all bunk, considering that the cost of paving one mile of the North Fork Road costs the same as treating 50 miles of unpaved roads with dust palliative. They may also wonder why Commissioner Hall is conducting the meeting instead of the county's Road Advisory Committee. All good questions, and Mr. Hall needs to answer them.
Like Hall's tactics or not, you've got to give him credit for chutzpah (I once lived in New York.) In this election year, he's not afraid of giving the appearance that he's practicing cronyism or favoritism. A former Columbia Falls mayor, Mr. Hall writes, "I believe that Columbia Falls can benefit as the Gateway to Glacier." No doubt banker Joe Francini and other Columbia Falls business owners would be real happy to have valley taxpayers create a smooth ribbon of asphalt up the North Fork to speed development and line their pockets.
I, on the other hand, believe that the announced county dust abatement plan should go forward, that any talk of paving roads should be out in the open for full public disclosure, input and oversight, and that decisions on spending taxpayer dollars for paving county roads should be based on priorities reflecting the number of taxpayers using those roads, the amount of traffic they carry and the county revenue contributed by taxpayers living on them. That's only fair. And if done fairly, the North Fork Road would surely be one of the last roads paved, not the first.
Finally, I hope all readers will take note of Mr. Hall's words in the Hungry Horse News when they step into the voting booth this June.
The following letter from Bill Breen ran in last week's Flathead Beacon and Hungry Horse News.
Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall recently wrote to the Hungry Horse News in which he promotes paving the North Fork road as far as Camas Creek.
Who does Mr. Hall think he is serving? Certainly not the taxpayers of Flathead County.
Commissioner Hall would be hard pressed to gain sympathy for this proposal from the many citizens (including myself) who live on heavily traveled unpaved roads in other parts of the county. Those who live on Jensen Road, McMannamy Draw, Lost Creek Drive, Mountain Meadow and many others find it outrageous that taxpayers would pay for paving a road to the wilderness of the North Fork while heavily traveled roads go unpaved. Roads with hundreds of more people living nearby and driving daily.
These roads generate clouds of polluted particulates into our atmosphere and are extremely harmful to human respiratory systems, particularly children, the elderly, and those who do strenuous outdoor work.
The road dust problem in Flathead County unfortunately might be with us for some time. Both federal and local dollars for paving are scarce. But there are some steps to mitigate this serious problem.
* Follow up on a proposal from the county Road Advisory Committee to use a different type of gravel that holds dust to the surface of the road.
* Require developers rather than taxpayers to pay for sub-division access roads in addition to interior roads.
* Stop approving sub-divisions before adequate road infrastructure is in place.
* Fix the much abused Family Transfer loopholes that allow developers to bypass county review.
* Enforce speed limits.
Solutions like this is what Commissioner Hall should advocate -- not wasting tax dollars on expensive boondoggles that serve very few people.
From the Monday, May 19, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
Area rivers topped flood stage on Monday, sending water into low-lying areas of West Glacier and Polebridge.
[...]
In Polebridge, the North Fork of the Flathead River rose gradually over the last few days, finally swamping the lawn at the North Fork Hostel on Sunday night.
"I have some water in my yard as of this morning," said hostel owner Oliver Meister, who has been watching the National Weather Service online river forecasting closely. "Believe me, I've been looking at that for the last five days."
The river gauge at Polebridge showed flows reaching 11.25 feet Monday, just below the river's 12-foot flood stage. But the North Fork was forecasted to crest just above flood stage by this morning.
Meister said he was prepared to sandbag his house to keep water out of his kitchen.
The hostel has the lowest-lying structures in the Polebridge area, and Meister speculated that the river would have to exceed its forecasted peak by quite a bit to cause problems for neighboring homes.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Sunday, May 18, 2008 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .
With cooler than expected weekend temperatures, the National Weather Service revised earlier flooding predictions downward Saturday, though several rivers are still expected to near or reach flood stage.
[...]
According to Sunday’s projection, the main stem of the Flathead River near Columbia Falls will now fall just short of its 14-foot flood stage; the river – originally projected to crest at 15.8 feet – is expected to reach 13.57 feet on Monday before receding. The North Fork of the Flathead at Polebridge will crest at 11.58 feet, just short of its flood stage of 12 feet, at about noon Monday, and the Stillwater River near Lawrence Park is now expected to fall well short of its 7.5-foot flood stage.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Friday, May 16, 2008 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .
With temperatures forecasted to rise into the high 80s in the next few days, melting snowpack is expected to bring several northwestern Montana rivers and streams to flood stage by the end of this weekend, the National Weather Service officials said Thursday afternoon.
Temperatures throughout the Flathead Valley are expected to reach the low 80s on Friday and peak near 88 degrees on Saturday and Sunday, according to NWS meteorologist Bruce Bauck. “We’ll be reaching record high temperatures in several parts of the state this weekend,” he said. “It’s truly a very exceptional heat wave for this time of year.”
Those high temps are expected to cause rapid melting in what has been a persistent winter snowpack. Snowpack in the Flathead River basin was 133 percent of the 30-year average on Thursday, according to hydrologist Ray Nickless.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Saturday, May 10, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
An expected warming trend has the National Weather Service projecting flooding in Northwest Montana rivers and streams by next weekend, a development that had the attention of more than 25 emergency responders Friday in Kalispell.
The group met at the Flathead County Office of Emergency Services, participating in a conference call with the National Weather Service and making early plans for local flooding.
Meteorologist Peter Felsch said the forecast calls for temperatures rising into the 70s or 80s late next week. That and mountain snowpack that has hardly melted combine for streamflow projections showing several Northwest Montana rivers approaching or exceeding flood stage by Sunday, May 18.
The service is forecasting "high water with possible flooding" in Flathead County, and "flooding expected" on the Yaak and Fisher Rivers in Lincoln County.
Read the entire article . . .
This is kind of old news, but still interesting. It is an April 24, 2008 AP article posted, of all places, on the KXMC-TV web site. KXMC is based in Minot, ND . . .
A Dumpster-diving grizzly bear has been captured near Stryker, south of Eureka, and has been relocated in the North Fork Flathead River Drainage.
State wildlife officials say the 500-pound, 6- to 8-year-old male grizzly was captured earlier this week behind the Point of Rocks Restaurant near Stryker.
The bear had been getting into a large metal trash bin near the restaurant.
The animal was released Thursday in the North Fork Drainage.
Grizzly Bear management specialist Tim Manley, with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, is working with the restaurant owner to install a bear-resistant dumpster.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Thursday, May 1, 2008 online edition of the Hungry Horse News . . .
The life of a grizzly bear outside of Glacier National Park or the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex is a decidedly risky proposition.
The number of bears killed inside Glacier by humans since 1999 was just one -- and it was an old bear that may have died as a result of a capture for research. In the Bob, where there are few people and no roads, the number was zero.
Inside the Park, folks don't tote guns and garbage, as well as vehicle traffic, is more closely controlled.
Outside the Park grizzlies run into people with guns and cars and trains and garbage cans full of good eats, and the prospects of survival grow more dim.
In 2007 there were 25 recorded grizzlies killed by humans, grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said, and that number may actually be as high as 30 -- there are five other bears that were found dead, but the cause of their death hasn't been determined. Servheen released his findings last Thursday during a multi-agency meeting of bear biologists and managers in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Friday, May 2, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
The National Weather Service is projecting that there will be flooding in Western Montana because of a persistent mountain snowpack.
"We're going to have some high water up in the Flathead, and it's looking like it will be right at that flood level," hydrologist Ray Nickless said during a Thursday conference call.
Read the entire article . . .
Here's a short report from one of the attendees at the County Commissioner's meeting today regarding a favorable vote on the North Fork Neighborhood Plan. Look for newspaper coverage tomorrow. . .
"[The Commissioners] passed the resolution of intent to approve our plan. Now there is a statutory 30-day comment period, then another vote. This vote was unanimous, with all three commissioners stating they recommended no changes."
From the Thursday, May 1, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
A sheriff's deputy specifically assigned to enforce speed limits on Flathead County's gravel roads will conduct his first patrol today.
County commissioners authorized the Sheriff's Office to spend about $60,000 this year to hire and equip the additional deputy — part of a comprehensive plan to mitigate the county's dust problem.
"His main function is to slow people down on gravel roads, hopefully to keep the dust down," Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said.
Deputy Stewart Smith will patrol the county's gravel roads in a marked squad car between May 1 and Oct. 31, focusing on enforcing the speed limit in areas with the worst dust problems.
[...]
Patrol assignments will be based on the number of dust complaints received, number of traffic stops on a given road, when those stops occur, and at what speeds offenders were traveling.
Roads that currently receive the most dust complaints include Hoffman Draw, McMannamy Draw, North Fork Road, Trumble Creek Road, Blankenship Road, Kienas Road, Braig Road and Mennonite Church Road.
Read the entire article . . .
Early last month, University of Montana researcher Shannon Donahue completed a very thorough review of the "...Direct and Indirect Effects of Paving Flathead County Road 486, the North Fork Road." It has generated a fair bit of interest, as well as a few minor corrections. We've posted the revised version for viewing or downloading here. There is also an executive summary available. (Both documents are in PDF format, which can be displayed using the free Adobe Reader.)