Tristan Scott

As the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) seeks to defend the state’s water quality standard for pollutants at the U.S.-Canada border — a standard that both the state’s Board of Environmental Review (BER) and Department of Justice (DOJ) are trying to rescind in favor of a more permissive value — a conservation group last […]

State and federal environmental regulators this week will host a pair of open houses and presentations to field questions about the future of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company (CFAC) Superfund property, where an emerging land sale and related development plans have renewed concerns among community members about the proposed cleanup plan. In addition to representatives […]

Fifteen years ago, engineers with the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) recognized the need to replace Sportsman’s Bridge, the narrow, two-lane steel structure that spans the Flathead River between Bigfork and Kalispell. With construction beginning in 1955, the steel bridge along Montana Highway 82 opened to the public in 1959. But its 12-foot-wide lanes and […]

Hacks ‘Megan Stalter as a struggling musician in an open relationship. Following its world premiere at last year’s SXSW Film Festival, the film will finally debut in theaters on June 14.

Last year, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its proposed cleanup plan for the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company (CFAC) Superfund site, project managers considered it a success if nine people turned up at a community engagement meeting. On Wednesday evening, attendance swelled to nearly 90 residents who crowded a conference room in downtown […]

A 76.5-acre family farm near Bad Rock Canyon this week received permanent protections through a conservation easement with the Flathead Land Trust, adding to a growing inventory of former agricultural and industrial parcels that will no longer be available for development. The land donated by Luci Yeats and her late husband, Dave, is known as […]

Federal land managers are seeking the public’s input as they revise the 2018 Flathead National Forest Plan, proposing to swap land-use designations for over-snow vehicle use by declaring certain areas as suitable to motorized activities such as snowmobiling while offsetting the loosened restrictions by prohibiting those activities in other areas, including recommended wilderness zones where […]

Every May in northwest Montana, a group of foresters, loggers, land managers, biologists, and educators trot out a familiar old saw to showcase their forestry fair: “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” The oft-quoted John Muir truism works on a couple levels, capturing the deep well of knowledge that lies […]

As river season gets underway, resource managers with the Flathead National Forest and Glacier National Park are fielding a familiar line of questioning from the river-using public about the status of the long-delayed Comprehensive River Management Plan (CRMP) for the three forks of the Flathead River. On May 6, park and forest officials attempted to […]

More than a dozen years after hiking all 734 miles of Glacier National Park’s trails in a single season, Jake Bramante has launched a new driving and biking guide to the scenic alpine highway