The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
Sorted by date Results 1 - 15 of 15
Lewis and Clark County Public Works unveiled a new website last week aimed at keeping the public informed about efforts to upgrade the Dalton Mountain Road Bridge. The website, lewisandclarkcountyinfrastructure.com, is part of the effort to secure grant funding through the Treasure State Endowment Program to replace the 60-year-old timber bridge. "It's kind of a nice deal really. It's the first time we've used a website for a TSEP project," Lewis and Clark County Director of P...
The Montana Business Assistance Connection is seeking public comments on an application for a Community Development Block Grant for Economic Development aimed at helping a prospective buyer purchase and expand Hi Country Snack Foods, Inc. MBAC's Community Development Program Grant Manager Eric Seidensticker presented information on the grant application, which requires local government sponsorship, at the Lincoln Government Day meeting Friday, April 6. The meeting served as...
Lewis and Clark County public safety officials are urging residents to register with or update their information on their mass notification system. During an emergency, RAVE Alert, the official mass notification system of Lewis and Clark County and the City of Helena, can send among other things texts, e-mails or voice messages to residents county-wide to keep them apprised of fires, floods or other public safety issues that may affect their communities. "Just as we saw with...
Snow creates a frozen wave on the edge of a drift that formed on a sidehill along Stemple Pass Road during last week's snowstorm....
The driver of a semi-truck that slide off Montana 200 on the east side of Rogers Pass narrowly avoided disaster Thursday. On icy roads, the truck was going around a corner and heading downhill when the truck jackknifed, the driver lost control and the truck went through the guardrail and down an embankment. The Montana Highway Patrol reported no injuries from the wreck. "It's crazy they're not dead," said Scott Wolff, owner of Iron Horse Towing. Wolff was tasked with getting... 
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How do you train for track meets when your school's own track is buried under two feet of snow? With track practice beginning in mid-March, snow is an issue Lincoln School Track Coach John Beckman II has often dealt with for a short time each year and Lincoln has seen some pretty mild springs in recent years, but even on normal years Beckman said they're usually able to get to the track by April. Not this year. "This year, it's been a whole new ball game," he said. Track and f...
April 8-14 is National Library week and the Lincoln Library has added 29 new bestsellers, three new movies, six new audiobooks, 12 new children’s books, and 163 other new books to the stacks this week. This week the Lincoln Library is also supporting the Lincoln Food Bank with ‘Food for Fines.” For library patrons with overdue books or other library material, the circulation staff will waive their fines if they bring along non-perishable food items between April 8 and April 15. It’s not exactly a free pass, however. People...
Bad potholes after long winters aren't new, but as the snow finally begins to recede and the roads thaw, they are becoming an increasingly jarring problem on the roads around Lincoln. Eric Griffin, Director of Public Works for Lewis and Clark County, said at Friday's Government Day meeting that they're aware of the problem, but asked people to be patient with them, in light of the recent winter storms that have rolled through the area. "We know, we're aware of it," he said....
Normally, I’m not one for complaining about the weather. Several times this winter I was heard to remind my better half that he chooses to live in the mountains and thus snow and cold weather are to be expected and besides, isn’t it beautiful? I even took a sort of weird, nostalgic pleasure in experiencing a “real” winter, like the ones I remember from a childhood spent trudging through snowdrifts (uphill both ways) to meet the school bus. But, with March coming in like a lion and going out like an a-hole, even I have re...
Looking back, it’s surprising to realize how hazardous our ranch childhoods were. We had scores of attractive dangers to lure us into difficult situations. We had horses, defensive cows with new calves, our pond, plus myriad things our urban friends didn’t. We were unsupervised most of the time, our fathers being at work and our mothers tending other children in those days of large families. Most of us were driving, or at least steering, tractors by the time we were seven or...
Lewis and Clark County is evaluating the new bids they received for the fabrication of the Hooper Park Restroom, but they’re higher than hoped for and the county will have to decide how they want to proceed. “The good news is that a couple are local businesses in the Helena Valley area,” County Commissioner Andy Hunthausen said at last Friday’s Lincoln Government Day meeting., “Bad news is that the price came in at about $150,000.” That puts Lewis and Clark County in a bind. “We just don’t have that sitting around,” Huntha...
This year when winter ends, and yes someday it will, talk will turn from snowfall and ice depth to snowmelt, runoff and flooding. Old timers will recall the great flood years from the 1960s and 1970s. More recently came high water in 1993 and 2011. Those were tough years for many of us. We may not like floods, but they serve a purpose in nature. Whether birds, amphibians or fish, many prairie wildlife species profit from excess water. Which brings us to the basic question:...
In support of Craig Byington’s comments on Jon Tester in the April 4, 2018 edition of the BVD, I’d like to add the following: He may have voted for these Trump proposals, but politics being what they are, his vote wasn’t even needed for these items to pass. Also, in his latest TV ad, have you noticed the Model 99 Savage rifle in his pickup? Yet he votes against pro-gun related issues and supports every anti-gun person nominated for an office or position. His Supreme Court votes for the last three judges verify this. What...
After the recent school shooting the usual cries for gun “safety” went out. Stephen Smith who lost his mother in a school shooting wrote a great pro-gun guest editorial which pretty much reflects my views on the subject. Democrats and other liberals are always in favor of “common sense gun-safety laws” as a way to save lives. They want to modify the Second Amendment to restrict what kind of gun you can own and how old an adult must be to buy a gun. These are the same people who believe convicted violent illegal immigra...
Snow may still be on the ground, but last year's wildfire season isn't too far from memory. We have good news for Montanans, though. After years of negotiation, we have finally secured a deal that moves forward on much-needed forest management reforms. Montanans get it: a managed forest is a healthy forest. But decades of mismanagement, environmental lawsuits and excessive red tape have kept responsible forest management projects from moving forward on thousands of acres....
