Letter: A Heads Up

In September, a thirty acre piece of ground along Highway 200 just west of the MDT equipment shop at about milepost 68.5 was sold to "Lost Moose Meadows" a business partnership that proposes to build an RV campground there. Plans, which we have seen, were filed with the Montana Department of Transportation. As the land owners immediately to the west of this property, we want to bring your attention to some of the problems it poses. We're sure that many of you will agree with us (and some, naturally, disagree) so here are some issues we'd like the community to consider:

1. Large vehicles, many involving camping trailers and/or boat and ATV trailers would be entering and leaving Hwy 200 in a 70 MPH zone where there are limited sight lines in both directions. To the east of the DOT facility, there is a rise with no-passing zones and the highway department shop, to the west, visibility is limited by the last curve of the Blackfoot canyon. We think there is a significant possibility, apparently not considered by MDT, of accidents and that could involve fatalities or serious injury.

2. The developer apparently proposes full hook-ups at each campsite. At capacity, that would be like having fifty single family homes requiring water and sewer facilities. The developer apparently proposes drilling wells and building a pump house to supply the water; then having a sewage treatment facility on site, with a drain field. The water table at that location is very high, and both ends of this process could endanger the aquifer upon which many residents of the west end of our valley rely.

3. The property is in an elk migration corridor and is also sometimes an elk calving ground. Destruction of the sagebrush habitat by construction of roads and parking sites will further pressure the elk herd, which many believe has been stressed recently. In an email, a FWP biologist described the site as winter range for the elk herd and wrote "it is not a location that I would like to see developed but we are limited in our ability to influence that."

4. There is also little reason to believe that this campground, located about three miles out of town, would be much benefit to the Lincoln business community. The Lost Moose developers, a husband and wife, have stated that they plan to run it themselves and intend to have a convenience store on site. It seems unlikely to us that it would ever create more than a small number of minimum wage jobs.

Montanans are independent people and generally don't like to tell others what to do. But, as citizens and neighbors, we think that when the formal Lewis and Clark County planning process begins, the community should be actively involved.

Bruce Margolius and Rick Freeland,

Lincoln