North shore park is wise bargain

Inter Lake editorial

A big hurdle has been cleared for a state park on Flathead Lake's north shore, with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission's recent approval of the land purchase.

The final step - approval by the state Land Board - will clear the way for the most significant public lands project in the Flathead area since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the Lost Trail Wildlife Refuge west of Kalispell in the 1990s.

The 160-acre parcel of farmland, to be purchased from Doug and Donna Miller, will be a park offering a diverse range of activities. As envisioned by some state officials, a portion of the land will offer camping, but most of the acreage will be managed for upland game bird habitat.

The purchase price of $1.9 million will someday be looked on as a wise bargain, one that protected open space in an area that has been and will continue to be under considerable development pressure.

It's too bad horse racing won't return to the Northwest Montana Fair next year.

Everyone enjoys the thunder of the hooves as the horses and riders round the bend and cross the finish line. Having a winning ticket is just a small part of the pleasure.

But despite the nostalgic appeal of this time-honored tradition, the county commissioners were probably right in sticking with their original decision to abandon horse racing at the fairgrounds.

These are tough times, and horse racing was costing taxpayers about $10,000 per day back in 2005 when commissioners voted to eliminate it. When there are so many other uses for that money, it's hard to justify spending it on entertainment.

Like others, we will keep our fingers crossed that circumstances will change and the ponies will return for another circuit of the track, but it doesn't look likely in the foreseeable future.

The fact that there isn't smoke billowing above Glacier High School is a sign of progress.

A retrofitting job may have corrected the problems that plagued the school's biomass boiler system last year. A separator now removes particles from the air inside the boiler and the boiler has been outfitted to burn hog fuel.

Problems last year not only prompted a few visits by firefighters when the boiler stacks were billowing smoke and ash, but also caused the biomass system to be shut down during part of the heating season.

Let's hope those problems are past.