Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke | Congressman Ryan Zinke Official Website (https://zinke.house.gov)
Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke | Congressman Ryan Zinke Official Website (https://zinke.house.gov)
(WASHINGTON, DC) Congressman Ryan Zinke today announced he has requested federal funding for 15 projects in Western Montana to improve infrastructure, economic development, and law enforcement capabilities. The projects are located in Anaconda-Deer Lodge, Beaverhead, Flathead (2), Glacier (3), Lake, Madison, Mineral, Missoula, Park, Powell, Ravalli and Lewis and Clark Counties. The projects are posted on Congressman Zinke’s website for public inspection here and the list is below.
“I personally toured many of the project sites proposed and my staff and I spent weeks vetting each one to ensure they are an appropriate use of taxpayer funding. I am proud to put my name behind these projects,” said Congressman Zinke. “Every one of these projects will make a big difference in the community and help Western Montana meet the challenges faced with increasing residency and aging infrastructure and services.”
The requests were made through the U.S. House of Representatives Community Project Funding policy which allows Members of the House to propose up to 15 local projects to receive funding from eligible grant programs. All projects must meet the published grant requirements and pass a series of legislative hurdles. Every project must be approved by the House Appropriations Committee, which Zinke is a member, the full House of Representatives and be included in the joint funding package approved by the House and Senate and signed by the President. Community Project Funding does not increase federal spending, the funding is allocated from previously authorized grant accounts. Allowing elected Members of Congress to direct grant funding brings accountability and transparency to a process that would otherwise be decided by unelected officials in the federal government.
Proposed projects include:
Anaconda-Deer Lodge is a consolidated County-City government, population 9,491, which currently has zero access to broadband infrastructure. This funding would provide for the installation of two strands of dedicated fibers for 1-10Gig Lit Service in a Ring Topology from the central location to each of the County's nine different sites. This will provide a high level of internet resiliency, and harden county election security and greatly improve emergency services and communications. The funding would replace a failing 99-year-old bridge that is on an important emergency services, school bus, and commodity transportation route. At more than 5,570 square miles, Beaverhead County is larger than the state of Connecticut and responsible for 1,300 miles of county roads, and 132 bridges. Fifty-nine percent of the land in the county is Federally owned, therefore the county is only able to secure property tax income on 41% of the county. The structural integrity of the bridge is in jeopardy, and renovating this bridge is the top priority of the County, however due to budget constraints they do not have the funds necessary to cover the project on their own. The State of Montana is also prioritizing this project as their top ranked commitment for MCEP funding. Funding would support the Blackfeet Nation in building a multi-use Tribal Center dedicated to improving socioeconomic outcomes for at-risk Youths and assisting the senior population. With more than 37% of the Blackfeet people living at or below the poverty line, the Blackfeet Nation is one of the poorest and most rural tribal nations in the United States, and economic development faces many hurdles. In 2022 the Tribal Business Council declared a State of Emergency due to the opioid epidemic, predominantly because of the flood of fentanyl on to the reservation. The multi-use Center would be focused on improving outcomes for all people with a focus on at-risk youths and seniors. The Center will allow youths to have a safe, drug-free, and stable place to spend time after school and during the summer months, space and resources to complete homework, a job training and services center, classes and services for seniors, and provide a technology lab with reliable broadband access for the Blackfeet. One of the challenges rural areas face for economic development is reliable access to health care and medical professionals. Additionally, a rural clinic or hospital often serves as the economic anchor for rural counties. Nearly every county in Montana is fully designated as a Primary Health Professions Shortage area by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and many of Montana’s rural counties do not have a physician. In these counties, physician assistants (PAs) are regularly the most-highly trained medical professional in the county. Carroll College would use this funding to establish educational classroom and lab spaces for a new PA Program to address the healthcare workforce shortage in the western region, specifically targeting training for rural PAs. Currently, Montana has only one PA program statewide, and Carroll College ’s program would provide another 34 seats per year beginning with the first cohort in fall 2025. To improve coverage and higher quality transmission for law enforcement radio traffic, Flathead Co. is requesting two 800 MHz Simulcast Remote sites with 4 FDMA trunked channels and appropriate RF plumbing and antenna systems to Flathead County 911’s Public Safety Radio System. Each site would utilize a GTR ESS 6-pack rack connected to one TX antenna, one RX antenna and a Tower Top Amplifier (TTA). This project extends stormwater infrastructure, reconstructs the road, and adds a sidewalk to connect existing infrastructure. This section of roadway was initially built as a county road. With housing developments extending beyond and annexing into the municipal limits, this section has yet to be improved, creating challenges in stormwater treatment and conveyance and pedestrian pathway travel from multi-family housing sections into the areas of developed infrastructure. This interface between county and municipal subdivisions leads to a hazardous roadway for pedestrians with significant traffic volumes. This project is an area of concern brought forward by the community during housing development projects and the concerns related to Two Mile Road being built to county standards versus a municipal cross section. Improvement for this stretch has been identified within the neighboring community, reflected as an identified project in our transportation plan, and noted for stormwater improvement needs within the conveyance system. The Glacier County Sheriff’s Office and Detention Center works with federal, Tribal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in the area. They hold Federal detainees as well as detainees from surrounding towns. The Sheriff’s Office works daily with Blackfeet Tribal Law Enforcement Services to provide Law Enforcement for the County and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, which recently declared a State of Emergency due to the worsening fentanyl crisis. The current 911 emergency system for the region is powered by personal computers and borrowed equipment. Vehicle and handheld radios used by the Sheriff’s Office are nearly twenty years old and outdated. The requested funds are planned to be allocated to: 2 Dispatch Center consoles ($650,000.00); 2 Base Radios ($29,000) 20 Vehicle and 26 Handheld radios ($338,000.00). The Glacier County Sheriff’s Office and Detention Center works with federal, Tribal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in the area. They hold Federal detainees as well as detainees from the City of Cut Bank. The Sheriff’s Office works daily with Blackfeet Tribal Law Enforcement Services to provide Law Enforcement for the County and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, which recently declared a State of Emergency due to the worsening fentanyl crisis. At the detention center, aging and faulty electronic lock technology has forced the use of physical keys and has negatively impacted response time to detainee medical emergencies. At the county level, the Sheriff’s office has been forced to patrol the 3,037 square mile jurisdiction with aging vehicles over rough terrain. The requested funds are planned to be allocated to: Electronic Security Door System ($130,882.00); Police-equipped 4x4 patrol cruisers ($279,163.52). The Lake County facility currently maintains felony authority over both Indian and Non-Indian offenders throughout the County, as well as misdemeanor authority for non-Indian offenders. Lake County is feeling the brunt of the opioid crisis – particularly with the abundance of fentanyl trafficking along highway 93, the main artery running north to south across the county. Lake County's detention facility is severely under-sized and over-crowded with a substantial, and growing, number of drug-related offenses. This requires both additional pre-detention screening and an increased need to move prisoners to other facilities in the state due to the lack of capacity. The requested funds would be allocated to procure: a) two fully-outfitted police cruisers and b) one Full Body Security Scanning System. Madison County has developed a unique model for caring for the county's senior population, setting up a nonprofit organization which runs nursing homes and provides meals and other services to local residents. The county has already allocated funding and additional federal funds would help the county purchase 71 new beds to replace beds acquired in the 1970s, repave parking lots, bring ambulance and pedestrian egress entryways and corridors up to ADA standard, renovate kitchens to expand meal capacity, renovate exterior recreation and exercise spaces, and build and equip a technology lab with accessible computers, monitors and televisions for residents. Funding for this project will facilitate a local nonprofit organization of volunteers to rebuild and rehab the Saltese trestle bridge located in Mineral. The bridge is a critical piece of infrastructure hosting four critical public utility easements for power and fiber optic connectivity and is a major thoroughfare for residents and economic driver for winter tourism. The bridge, however, is in structural decay with large pieces of concrete often falling away from the bridge. Mineral County has been described as having persistent poverty and being a hotbed of unemployment. 90% of the land ownership here is Federal or State lands therefore limiting the ability for the county to collect revenue on much of the land. Rebuilding the bridge will ensure long-term economic viability for the county and stable connectivity and power for residents and businesses. This funding would be added to more than $25,000,000 of private funding to build a forestry school and job training facility in western Montana. Of the nation's leading mass timber producers, two of them are in Montana’s First Congressional District. This project can help establish mass timber production as a major economic driver in Montana. Doing so will dramatically increase demands at local mills and produce a jolt to many rural economies across western Montana. The 2022 flood on the Yellowstone River was a once-in-500-years catastrophic event which destroyed highways, bridges, and other infrastructure in Yellowstone National Park and Park County, MT. The flood destroyed a utilities transmission line across the river and delayed a project to build a pedestrian bridge. Stuck in their bureaucratic ways, two Federal agencies authorized the construction of two separate structures across the river, one for pedestrian access (WFLAP) and one for utilities (FEMA) for a total of $13,500,000; however, the total cost for construction of one combined pedestrian/utility bridge over the Yellowstone is estimated at $9,500,000. This funding would be used to combine the two bridges to become one pedestrian bridge that carries utility lines, thus saving taxpayers $3.5 million. Funding this project will help to recapture an important community space and support services to critical infrastructure. Located near the I-90/I-15 interchange and between Yellowstone and Glacier National Park, Powell County is host to a primary transportation corridor through Western Montana and the County needs to have a shop to maintain this critical infrastructure. Currently, basic County maintenance protocols are a significant challenge due to having to shuffle vehicles and a lack of workspace. This creates additional maintenance cost and a more hazardous work environment. This funding would be added to more than $25,000,000 of private funding to build a forestry school and job training facility in western Montana. Of the nation's leading mass timber producers, two of them are in Montana’s First Congressional District. This project can help establish mass timber production as a major economic driver in Montana. Doing so will dramatically increase demands at local mills and produce a jolt to many rural economies across western Montana.Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up