North Fork should be better maintained

To the editor,

It's not a just a road to nowhere.

True, the North Fork Road ends at a closed border crossing. For some of us this is a justification for a sub-standard North Fork Road maintenance program. The fact is, the North Fork Road is a recreation and tourism road used by thousands of valley residents and people from all over the U.S. and the world. From early summer through late fall the North Fork Road is used to access camping sites, fishing and floating the North Fork of the Flathead River, hiking, berry and mushroom picking in the Flathead National Forest, and accessing Glacier National Park's northwest section or using the unmanned entrance to Glacier at Camas Creek. We need the support of local residents who use the road along with businesses who rely on it in providing services to both residents and others.

Because the North Fork Road Coalition for Health and Safety (NFRCHS) is a relatively small activist group, we need the help of anyone interested in working with us to persuade the county it needs to improve the road — both for everyone's safety and the health risks associated with excess dust.

Those of us who drive the North fork Road to access our homes, recreation property, to provide business services, or to recreate know the North Fork Road is not a road to nowhere.

Please write, e-mail or call our county commissioners and urge them to put the North Fork Road near the top of their priority list for grading, graveling and a dust control program.

If you would like to join our coalition in common cause, feel free to contact me via e-mail at nfdustbunnies@gmail.com.

Jan Caldwell

North Fork Road Coalition for Health and Safety

Scout thanks

To the editor,

Cub Scout Pack 101 would like to thank the community of Columbia Falls for their generous support at our March 28 food drive for the Columbia Falls Food Bank. We would also like to say a special "thank you" to Smith's in Columbia Falls for hosting our food drive. With your help, we collected 754 pounds of edible food items, 75 pounds of pet food and baby supplies, and $211 in cash donations.

Thanks to all who donated!

Columbia Falls Cub Scout Pack 101

Get the facts about pit

To the editor,

I would like to call attention to an issue of profound importance to the future of Montana and the integrity of our communities and the quality of life that we enjoy and that our economy depends on.

This is the application by Spoklie for a major gravel mining operation right next to Glacier National Park and surrounded by private residential properties. The Department of Environmental Quality has called for public comment and very recently did the right thing by extending the period of comment from a mere 10 days to May 1. This was important if, for no other reason, that it removed the impression, for many people, that this was a fast track process to favor private interests over public rights.

The existing Environmental Assessment proposal appears to many people in the community to be superficial, arbitrary, subjective and lacking in the hard data to support the scale of the proposed gravel mining operations. Significant environmental impacts are not even addressed. The degree to which such a gravel mining operation would permanently diminish national treasures, Glacier National Park and Middle Fork of the Flathead River (a Wild and Scenic River) and the tourist economy it supports, is evident in the outrage already expressed by local residents, businesses and public land agencies that have the interests of all Americans, not just a local corporation, in mind.

Please write to the contacts below before May 1 and demand a full-scale Environmental Impact Statement and public hearing so that this decision is made with true scientific data and full adherence to the law and policies of Montana and the USA and doesn't become another example of corporate benefit over common citizens. We've seen enough of that with bailouts and economic melt downs. Let's have real accountability be the order of the day for a change.

DEQ document (Environmental Assessment) is available at: www.deq.mt.gov/ea/opencut.asp. Contact information for public comment: Rod Samdahl, DEQ, Industrial and Energy Minerals Bureau, 109 Cooperative Way, Suite 105, Kalispell, MT 59901; fax: (406)755-8977; e-mail: rsamdahl@mt.gov.

Ann Casler-Fagre

West Glacier

Thanks for Clean the Falls

To the editor,

Glacier Bank would like to thank everyone who helped with Clean the Falls 2009. We had a great turn-out and the town looks terrific! Congratulations to Logan Kolodejchuk, winner of the mountain bike, and to Brad Nieves, winner of the $50 gift certificate to Columbia Nursery.

A special thanks to the following businesses: Cimarron Caf, e Pee-Wee's Porta-Potties and Evergreen Disposal. Columbia Falls is a cleaner community because of all your help! Hope to see everyone again next year!

The Glacier Bank of Columbia Falls staff

Disagrees with FWP policy

To the editor,

Please don't show me a picture of a beautiful wild creature sleeping peacefully in a tree and then tell me this perfectly healthy magnificent animal has been euthanized because of some "policy."

With policies like this FWP (Fish, Wildlife and Parks' is going to work its way out of a job as our wildlife is going to cease to exist in its entirety. As our population continues to grow beyond the resources of our planet, as well as our insatiable appetite for development, habitats for every creature four-legged or otherwise are becoming too small to sustain them.

In addition to that, our absurd demand for safety and control is requiring greater distance between us and anything that might even remotely, possibly, may be a threat or a danger. In days gone by people had to deal with all sorts of dangers and risks and they grew stronger and wiser because of it.

Our culture seems to think that somehow if we eliminate every imaginable hazard that we will live forever. Guess what? It's not going to happen. None of us are getting out of here alive and instead we will just live shallow, boring, fearful lives and will have eliminated everything that makes our planet so full of wonder.

Maybe we need to learn how to live together with our creation and not live at its expense.

Kathryn Berg

Bigfork