Ben Parsons Dies in Backcountry Skiing Accident
The backcountry skiing death of beloved endurance athlete and local firefighter Ben Parsons opened the year with a bleak reminder of the unpredictable nature of the mountains and the insurmountable tragedy of losing a hero.
The Kalispell native died Jan. 5 in an avalanche while backcountry skiing on Stanton Mountain in Glacier National Park. He was 36.
A devoted family man and friend to many, Parsons was well known throughout the community, where he was recognized for his unrivaled prowess as an elite mountain biker and ski mountaineer, as well as for his infectious smile and gregarious nature.
Local community members, including Parsons’ wife Jen and infant son Rowan, have since honored him on multiple occasions, ensuring that the legacy of the “Spirit Bear” lives on.
Montana Legislature Battles Over Budget, Returns for Special Session
The 65th Legislature kicked off Jan. 2, marking the launch of the state’s 90-day political session in Helena, where the governor and the pool of 150 lawmakers quickly found themselves staring down a tight budget that would influence nearly every policymaking decision and force across-the-board cuts to government functions.
Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock summoned lawmakers back to Helena for a special session to patch a $227 million budget hole, cutting $76.6 million in general funding, including $49 million to the Department of Health and Human Services, which serves the state’s most vulnerable populations, while temporarily raising some taxes to defray the costs of Montana’s fire season.
Aquatic Invasive Species
Montanans have become intimately familiar with mussels and the threat they pose to the state’s cherished waterways. Last year saw the first detection of the invasive species in the state, and a task force has formed to combat the spread of the devastating mussels. The detection has increased the potential for mussels to spread by clinging to the hulls of boats or persisting in bilge water.
If mussels do spread to other waterways, such as Flathead Lake, it could lead to millions of dollars in damages and significantly harm fisheries. State agencies have expanded efforts to combat the spread by increasing inspection efforts, as well as by enhancing monitoring efforts, public outreach and public education.
Special Election
Just when it seemed the tiresome election season had ended, President Donald Trump selected Montana’s U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke to serve as secretary of the interior in the new administration, setting Montana up for a special election to fill the vacant Congressional seat. The ensuing showdown between Republican Greg Gianforte, who months earlier ran unsuccessfully against Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, and Democrat Rob Quist, a well-known musician who donned a 10-gallon cowboy hat to complement his push-broom mustache, produced a race replete with kitschy cowpoke campaign commercials in which the candidates wielded firearms and pledged to uphold the state’s values.
In a bizarre turn of events, on the eve of the May 24 special election, Gianforte was charged with assault for attacking a reporter covering the campaign for a national news organization. Despite the so-called “body slam heard ‘round the world,” Gianforte went on to win, preserving the GOP’s 24-seat edge in the House of Representatives.
Zinke Interior
Whitefish native Ryan Zinke became the first Montanan to join the president’s cabinet, literally trotting into Washington, D.C. to take charge of the nation’s federal lands and natural resources.
The Department of the Interior is responsible for energy leases on millions of acres of federal lands and waters around the U.S., as well as for management of national parks. Zinke has been a staunch advocate of mining and logging on federal lands, prompting some to voice concern that he would align with Trump’s agenda to prioritize the development of oil, gas and other resources over the protection of clean water, air and wildlife. Still, given Zinke’s roots at the doorstep of Glacier National Park, conservationists were hopeful that environmental advocacy would prevail to some degree.
Those hopes were gradually eroded as Zinke, at Trump’s behest, embarked on an unprecedented review of the country’s national monuments, recommending significant reductions in acreage to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah.
Meanwhile, his mixed views on climate change have risen to the fore, with Zinke stating that climate change is “not a settled science.” Coupled with the Trump administration’s attempts to scrub information about climate change from federal government websites and reports of the Interior’s attempts to quiet climate science advocates, Zinke has been in the news more than any Interior Secretary in recent memory.
Wildfires
Dry conditions plagued Montana this summer, with multiple wildfires torching more than 1.2 million acres throughout the state. The largest fire, the Lodgepole Complex fire, impacted over 270,000 acres. Fires are common in Montana, but this year’s fire season was different. Spring brought plenty of moisture from an abundant snowpack and provided adequate moisture for grass growth. The moisture quickly depleted, leaving most of the state in drought condition.
In late August in Glacier National Park, the Sprague Fire claimed the historic, two-story Sperry Chalet, a beloved, century-old structure, burning it to the ground. As soon as the fire subsided and the chalet was accessible, crews descended on the building by helicopter to stabilize it for winter, while funds were raised to preserve the beloved building.
The cost of fighting wildfires in Montana approached $400 million in what was the state’s worst wildfire season in two decades.
Water Bottling Plant
A divisive plan to build a water bottling plant near the Flathead River has drawn intense scrutiny since an initial permitting application revealed the full scope of the proposal in January 2016, and emotions have run high ever since.
This fall, dozens of neighbors continued their efforts to halt the proposed development in an administrative setting, during a hearing before the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, one of the state agencies charged with approving or denying plans by the Montana Artesian Water Company.
During the course of a three-day hearing in Kalispell, attorneys representing around 40 objectors laid out their case against the plant, arguing that the state erred when it issued a preliminary water-rights permit after determining it would cause “no adverse impacts” to other water rights owners in the area.
The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation must now issue a final order stating its decision on the water-rights application. The final order may be appealed by filing a petition in state district court within 30 days after service of the order.
Whitefish Planning Controversy with County
The doughnut saga may be effectively over, but Whitefish and Flathead County are still far from seeing eye to eye on planning and design standards. The latest example unfolded at the south entrance to Whitefish, where a county zoning change could pave the way for offices, light manufacturing and other retail opportunities.
Some Whitefish residents are worried about Flathead County’s plan to invite so-called “commercial sprawl” in the south corridor. The land, which is within the jurisdiction of Flathead County, was zoned agricultural but has been adjusted to a more business-friendly designation. Although parts of the county’s proposed plan align with Whitefish’s design and infrastructure standards, the overall proposal could conflict with the city’s vision, which has previously opposed significant development in the southern entrance.
Business owners just outside city limits have complained that they’ve been mired in a zoning limbo that has devalued their properties, hampered their growth and left them grappling with an uncertain future.
Transboundary Mining Pollutants
As British Columbia’s downstream neighbor, Montana has long been concerned about mining pollution spilling across the international border and into its world-class watersheds — fears that a growing body of research and evidence confirms are well founded.
This summer, conservation groups and scientists on both sides of the border renewed their calls for Teck Resources to halt new coal mines in the Elk River Valley, a step they say gained urgency when an experimental water treatment facility designed to stem the flow of a mining contaminant called selenium was taken offline because it was releasing an even more biologically toxic form of the heavy metal. The trouble brewing in the Elk River is equally worrisome for Montana, where the upstream waterways of British Columbia flow into two shared bodies of water straddling the international boundary — Lake Koocanusa and the Kootenai River.
In November, in an unprecedented show of state-and-federal solidarity on the issue, Gov. Steve Bullock and U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, both Montana Democrats, called upon U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to ramp up pressure on the Canadian government in order to address legacy impacts of transboundary pollution in the Kootenai River system.
Night of the Grizzlies Anniversary
This summer marked the 50th anniversary of the “Night of the Grizzlies,” the unthinkable tragedy that unfolded in Glacier National Park and claimed the lives of two young women and at least five grizzly bears. Remembering the tragic night, during which two women were fatally mauled in separate incidents, was an occasion to remember how the deaths dramatically reshaped the nation’s policies on wildlife and grizzly management, as well as to honor the lives of two ambitious young women.
School District Hack
Overseas hackers launched an extensive campaign of cyber threats in an effort to extort local residents, crippling local communities with fear and disrupting school and activities for days, ultimately affecting more than 15,700 students across Flathead County.
Electronic threats were delivered to schools across the valley late Sept. 13 and early Sept. 14, prompting widespread school closures across Flathead County on Sept. 14 and Sept. 15.
Law enforcement identified the hacking group known as The Dark Overlord, which cracked into the Columbia Falls School District’s secure system and spent weeks gathering and analyzing data about students in the district, including gaining access to the school’s security cameras. The group then unleashed a series of violent threats targeting students, parents and school staffers via media as personal as text messages to private cell phones. The group’s final goal was getting school districts to pay a ransom in exchange for the group not releasing the confidential data across the web. Schools did not pay.
Whitefish Energy
During the brief but tumultuous period that began when Whitefish Energy ferried its first batch of work crews to the hurricane-ravaged island of Puerto Rico in late September and ended a month later with the terse culmination of its $300 million contract, national reports and government officials drew tenuous connections between company CEO Andy Techmanski and the Trump administration — mainly via wealthy Republican donors and Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke, a Whitefish native whose son briefly worked for the company — while congressional leaders and oversight committees called for a multitude of investigations and audits.
Meanwhile, Techmanski and the head of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) maintained that nothing was awry, pointing to the 350 workers Whitefish Energy had mobilized in less than a month as evidence of efficiency.
When the announcement came that Puerto Rico was scrapping the deal, Ricardo Ramos, head of PREPA, said the issue had become “an enormous distraction” that was “negatively impacting the work we’re already doing,” but was complimentary of Whitefish Energy’s work. He later resigned.
After completing its work, Whitefish Energy withdrew from the island and Techmanski returned home to Whitefish.
CFAC Superfund Designation
What’s next for the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company property? For now, it’s the site of ongoing environmental testing as the Environmental Protection Agency studies the level of contamination at the former industrial plant. Yet at the same time, prospective developers are already sniffing around to study the economic viability of the massive site, which is served by rail and significant energy infrastructure from the nearby Hungry Horse Dam.