[House Hearing, 105 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FUTURE MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR OF THE GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD IN GLACIER
NATIONAL PARK
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS AND PUBLIC LANDS
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 21, 1998, KALISPELL, MONTANA
__________
Serial No. 105-115
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house
or
Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
51-797 CC WASHINGTON : 1998
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
LINDA SMITH, Washington CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona SAM FARR, California
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon ADAM SMITH, Washington
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado RON KIND, Wisconsin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah, Chairman
ELTON, GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee Samoa
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
RICHARD W. POMBO, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
LINDA SMITH, Washington FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
RICK HILL, Montana DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada Islands
RON KIND, Wisconsin
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
Allen Freemyer, Counsel
Todd Hull, Professional Staff
Liz Birnbaum, Democratic Counsel
Gary Griffith, Professional Staff
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held September 21, 1998.................................. 1
Statements of Members:
Burns, Hon. Conrad, a Senator in Congress from the State of
Montana, letter to Hon. Rick Hill.......................... 65
Statements of witnesses:
Armbruster, Rahn............................................. 58
Prepared statement of.................................... 75
Black, Roscoe................................................ 60
Brooke, Will, President, Glacier/Waterton Visitor Association 31
Prepared statement of.................................... 72
Darrow, George............................................... 57
Hall, Gary, Mayor of Columbia Falls, Montana................. 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 65
Helton, John E., Abbott Valley Homestead, Martin City,
Montana.................................................... 62
Prepared statement of.................................... 74
Hunt, Richard B., Vice-President, Friends of Glacier, Inc.... 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 69
Jacoby, Carol H., Division Engineer, Western Federal Lands
Highway Division, Federal Highway Administration........... 5
Prepared statement of.................................... 64
Response to questions from Mr. Hill...................... 82
Meznarich, Lowell, Glacier County Commissioner............... 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 66
Mihalic, David, Superintendent, Glacier National Park,
National Park Service...................................... 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 63
Retz, Bob.................................................... 60
Running Crane, Roger, Vice-Chairman, Blackfeet Nation........ 28
Prepared statement of.................................... 68
Unterreiner, Joe, President, Associated Chambers of the
Flathead Valley............................................ 26
Prepared statement of.................................... 84
Wieringa, Onno............................................... 61
Additional material supplied:
Baggetta, Mike and Joe Galliani, Founding Partners, The Parks
Company, prepared statement of............................. 88
Bissell, Gilbert K., Owner/Manager, Aero Inn, Kalispell,
Montana, prepared statement of............................. 82
Brown, Dee, Canyon RV & Campground, Hungry Horse, Montana,
prepared statement of...................................... 93
Kennedy, James E., Designer, Log Chalets for Two, West
Glacier, Montana, prepared statement of.................... 90
Streeter, Serena, Owner, Glacier Park Super 8 Motel, prepared
statement of............................................... 94
Willows, Sharlon L., C.L.A., Certified Legal Assistant,
Adminstrative Law, Hungry Horse, Montana, prepared
statement of............................................... 76
FUTURE MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR OF THE GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD IN GLACIER
NATIONAL PARK
----------
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1998
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on National
Parks and Public Lands, Committee on Resources,
Kalispell, Montana.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. at
Cavanaugh's at Kalispell Center, Ballroom A, 20 North Main,
Kalispell, Montana, Hon. Rick Hill, presiding.
Mr. Hill. [presiding] The Subcommittee on National Parks
and Public Lands will come to order.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on
rehabilitating the historic Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier
Park.
I do have an opening statement that I want to add to the
record. First, I want to thank all the witnesses for taking
their valuable time to add to the important discussion, and I
want to thank all of you who are here attending today's
hearing. Your interest in helping the National Park Service and
our Subcommittee deliberate on rebuilding this road is very
important to all of us, and I've asked for this hearing due to
my concern and the concern that has been expressed by many of
my constituents over the possible impacts that the rebuilding
effort may have on the Park, on nearby communities and on
Montana's tourism industry.
Chairman Hanson was gracious enough to allow us to hold
this hearing because of the road's significance, not only to
the local communities and to Montana, because of its important
to the whole of the National Park System, and he has told me
personally that he believes that this hearing will be very
valuable as the Subcommittee examines this effort and similar
projects around the country.
He and other Members of the Subcommittee could not be here
today. However, that doesn't mean they don't care about this
issue. They will continue to pay close attention to the hearing
record and the progress that we make in this matter today. I
would point out to you that we had two Committee Members who
were unable to attend the hearing simply because of
accommodations for the airlines. They were unable to get air
passage into Kalispell because of the strike and then the
impacts associated with that.
This is important for many reasons, this hearing. We all
want to protect this historic road, and I think everybody here
agrees that that is an important role for the Congress and for
the Park Service. We also want to enhance access by visitors,
and we want to also enhance visitor enjoyment of the Park. We
also want to make sure that the local economy will not be
unfairly impacted by and during the reconstruction effort, and
for that reason, my goals in this hearing are really two-fold:
One, I want to have a discussion of the mitigating--how we can
mitigate the economic impacts to the local communities as much
as possible by finding the right alternative to the
reconstrudditional days following this hearing. We also are
going to have an open mike period for some period following the
hearing. That may be restricted by time to a half hour or an
hour, and we will allow people to enter public comment. I would
ask those that do to limit their comments to 2 minutes and to
also confine their comments to the road as opposed to any of
the other issues associated with the Management Plan.
You may also submit your thoughts to my offices here in
Montana or in Washington, or you can submit them to the
Honorable Jim Hanson, Chairman of the Subcommittee on National
Parks and Public Lands, at H1-814 O'Neill House Office
Building, Washington, DC, 20515, and that will be available for
you. You don't have to write that down. You can also see any
member of my staff that is here if you have trouble getting any
or all of that information or submitting that information. They
will be here to help the public during and after this hearing.
With that, again, I want to thank everybody for their
interest. I look forward to a productive discussion and hearing
where we can work together to find some commonsense solutions,
and with that I would like to call our first witnesses to the
table.
Our first panel of witnesses is Dave Mihalic,
superintendent of Glacier Park, and Carol Jacoby, an engineer
with the Western Federal Lands Highway Division of the Federal
Highway Administration.
If you would both stand and raise your right hands, it is
the general process, as you know, with the rules of the 105th
Congress, that all witnesses appearing before Congressional
hearings are sworn under oath, and we will ask all witnesses to
do that.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Hill. Thank you.
I would remind the witnesses that under the Committee rules
they should be limiting their oral statements to 5 minutes. If
they have a longer statement than that, it will appear in the
record.
I now recognize Mr. Mihalic.
STATEMENT OF DAVID MIHALIC, SUPERINTENDENT, GLACIER NATIONAL
PARK, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Mr. Mihalic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to
introduce Ms. Mary Riddle, who is our General Management Plan
coordinator, who is sitting next to me.
Mr. Chairman, we applaud your interest in seeking ways to
maintain the values preserved by----
Mr. Hill. You need to turn your mike on.
Mr. Mihalic. I'm sorry. I should say, Mr. Chairman, that my
statement has been submitted to the Committee for the record,
and I'll summarize it here.
Mr. Chairman, we applaud your interest in seeking ways to
maintain the values preserved by our national parks, which are
so important to all Americans, and also critical to local
communities near the parks. A General Management Plan guides
the administration of each unit of the National Park System.
Glacier's last master plan was completed in 1977. Our first
public scoping meetings were held in the spring of 1995. Since
then, we have had a number of opportunities to listen to the
public, those both near and far, so that we can incorporate
their comments into our planning. One of the most controversial
issues is how to rehabilitate the world famous Going-to-the-Sun
Road.
This national landmark has been rightly recognized as
perhaps the most scenic road in North America. The
deterioration of the Sun Road was recognized by the Service
over a decade ago. With the passage of the Intermodal Surface
Transportation and Efficiency Act, funds were made available to
the National Park Service for park road construction across the
nation. Glacier and the needs of the Sun Road competed with
other national park needs across the country.
The only work scheduled in the next few years is on some of
the most critical repair needs on the retaining walls in the
alpine section of the Sun Road and a slumping section of the
Many Glacier Road. These sites are sections of the road where
it is easier to maintain visitor traffic during construction
even though delays still result. There is no apss than a half
mile of road in the Logan Pass area. For those who remember, it
was a nightmare, both for the contractor and the public. Some
of the delays seemed interminable. We tried many things and
learned a tremendous amount from that experience. For example,
we tried night work. We tried lane closures, scheduling major
work in the fall, all those steps that quickly come to mind.
Mostly, we learned that working on this high, narrow, carved-
from-a-cliff national landmark cannot be done without conflicts
and impacts when the construction season and the visitor season
are almost one and the same.
As a result, the Service and the Federal Highway
Administration put our most experienced engineers and
transportation planners to work on how best to continue the
road work and minimize the impact to visitors. We're using the
General Management Plan process to seek public input.
We quickly learned three things: First, doing the work
conventionally with the funding we would normally expect from
the Park Roads and Parkways Program would take decades to
complete; second, being able to maintain traffic flow, which
really means ensuring visitors to Glacier would be able to
continue to traverse the Park, is a tremendous complicating
factor; finally, the costs of the different alternatives vary
radically, from approximately $70 million to $210 million.
We've been very concerned since the beginning about the
potential for tremendous economic impact. We know that the road
work might impact the whole state, especially as Montana
prepares for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. We also know
that there are different economic interests at stake, whether
one is located east of the Divide or in the Flathead, in a
retail or service industry or gateway community visiting
Glacier.
We arranged for studies of the economic impacts on local
businesses and the broader travel industry. Those studies
indicated that the economic pain only gets worse the longer the
work drags on. Since then, the University of Montana has
conducted independent studies arriving at similar conclusions.
Mr. Chairman, I wish I could sit before you today and tell
you that we have a plan or the money to carry it out to rebuild
the road without disrupting anything, but I cannot. We do not
have the fiscal resources that come anywhere near matching the
road needs of our parks, and for every tax dollar spent in
Glacier, there are $3 for other national parks that go unmet.
We have proposed what we believe is the best solution given
the knowledge we have today. Believe me. If there's a better
solution, I will be the first to embrace it. We also do not
want to see the road closed from the public any more than
necessary, nor do we want to see a catastrophic road failure.
I also pledge to you that we see this as an opportunity to
work closely with the surrounding communities and the State of
Montana. During the time we are developing detail design, we
would be happy to work with the communities and the state to
mitigate as much as possible the effects on local and State
economies during the period that the road is under
construction. In fact, I hope we can use the challenge we all
face with the road construction to forge the most successful
cooperation yet among the Park, the State and the affected
communities to better serve our visitors.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership in bringing
these issues to the forefront. The Sun Road is perhaps the most
spectacular roadway in the National Park System. Our agency's
mission is to preserve these treasures for future generations
and also use them for the present. I assure you that is our
goal.
That concludes my formal remarks, Mr. Chairman, and I'd be
happy to respond to any questions you may have.
Mr. Hill. Thank you Mr. Mihalic.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihalic may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Ms. Jacoby.
STATEMENT OF CAROL H. JACOBY, DIVISION ENGINEER, WESTERN
FEDERAL LANDS HIGHWAY DIVISION, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMes to
improve the condition of Going-to-the-Sun Road. The Federal
Highway Administration has been assisting the Park Service in
assessing the roadway and transportation needs and how to enact
reconstruction. This assistance is being provided in accordance
with the 1983 Interagency Agreement between the National Park
Service and Federal Highway Administration.
The current assistance Federal Highway is providing began
in 1984 with a study of the roads in Glacier National Park and,
particularly, Going-to-the-Sun Road. Since then, we've been
updating the findings of the 1984 study, and we've been
continuing our efforts with the Park to look at these roads.
Improvements have been initiated on the Park road. The work
within Glacier National Park is challenging due to the
difficult terrain, the importance of preserving Park values and
the impact of how and when reconstruction projects occur and
the need to accommodate the traveling public. In summary, the
Federal Highway Administration is committed to assisting the
Park Service to develop and refine alternatives in the General
Management Plan to expedite rehabilitating Going-to-the-Sun
Road and, simultaneously, minimize impacts on the traveling
public visiting the Park and the adjacent edge communities.
We appreciate the opportunity to provide comments, and
we're available to answer detailed questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacoby may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much.
Thank you both for your testimony. Let me ask a few
questions.
Let me start with one--It's a bit indirectly related to the
whole reconstruction effort, but one of the issues I've heard
from a number of constituents about is the issue of the width
of the road. There's some areas where we're doing
reconstruction right now where we're actually narrowing the
road from what it is now. I think it's what is referred to as
Moose Country. Can you address that matter, why we're narrowing
the road, Mr. Mihalic, and what the responsibilities of the
Park are in that area?
Mr. Mihalic. Well, I think that we're trying to make the
road retain its historic character. The roadway width is 22
feet. It's that width substantially all the way up through the
Lake McDonald section and also on the east side. There is a
section in Moose Country, probably less than half a mile, that
was flooded in the 1964 flood and repaired at that time, and at
that time it was made 26 feet wide. In order to make that
section back along the--to the width of the rest of the
roadway, we're reducing it from 26 feet to 22 feet. Most of the
road that the public drives, the vast majority of the road that
the public drives, is 22 feet or less.
I think that--I'm not sure what the concern is in this one
particular section of coming down from 26 to 22 feet, unless
there's some engineering concern that I'm not aware of.
Mr. Hill. I think the concern is, I think, two-fold. One is
the issue of safety. Are we adequately considering the concerns
of safety when we narrow the road or if we confine it to its
historic width? In your testimony I think you pointed out that
we built this road with horse drawn equipment, and it was built
for a different age. Are we adequately considering the impact
on the safety of the traveling public?
Mr. Mihalic. I would believe we are, and, certainly, Ms.
Jacoby could answer from an engineering prospective, from a
safety engineering perspective.
The biggest concern we have with respect to safety on the
road is really bicyclists on the road. Probably most people who
have driven that road know that the area that's of most concern
is really on the high alpine section. We've had hardly any
bicycle accidents on those portions of the road that are 22
feet wide, and this one particular section is fairly straight.
If anything, a wider road would encourage greater speeds.
I think we're just going on the basis of our experience.
Mr. Hill. One of the concerns there, it seems, Dave, is
tning that part of the road an additional two to two and a half
feet. I don't know if there's--if it's a strict standard
through every one, but we are adding additional pavement and
roadway width in those areas where it's a concern.
Mr. Hill. In the corners?
Mr. Mihalic. So I think it's not so much that we're
sticking to a standard and we're not considering anything else.
I think we're trying to work with our engineers to try to find
out how to maintain the road as a historic road, which the
public has told us they want to see, and yet be able to take
care of these safety concerns.
Mr. Hill. But it is your interpretation that your
responsibility to maintain it as an historic road does obligate
you to maintain the roadway width at 22 feet? I mean, that's
the Park's conclusion?
Mr. Mihalic. I think what we've found is that 22 feet keeps
the road a gentle, curving, pleasurable, low-speed visitor
experience and that any concern about safety with bicyclists,
collisions or anything else is just really not there.
Obviously, we want to--The road was probably even narrower. It
was a gravel road when it was constructed for historic
purposes.
We're not making a decision and saying, History is
dictating this. I think what we're saying is that, This is the
best roadway width in order to maintain lower speeds, maintain
a safe roadway for bicyclists and the public, and so far, at
least, in the 10 years of experience we have with that width on
both sides of the Park, we haven't seen any increase in terms
of problems with respect to accidents or accidents with
bicyclists.
Mr. Hill. I have some photographs that a constituent has
offered suggesting that you're not paving in the corners
sufficiently. I'm not going to dwell on that, but what I would
do is offer these photographs to you and ask you if you would
respond just for the record with regard to the specifics that
are here.
Mr. Mihalic. Certainly.
Mr. Hill. And we can leave that behind.
[The information referred to may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Hill. One of the other issues, though, that has been
raised is the suggestion that the reason that the road in that
area was wider was to accommodate people to stop and view moose
and other wildlife and that, as part of the Management Plan
with respect to the road, the Management Plan actually calls
for more pullout areas and more areas for people who are
touring the Park to be able to stop and observe wildlife or
observe the scenery, and the concern that's been expressed to
me is that, what is occurring in the area that we're doing
reconstruction on right now is somewhat inconsistent with what
we're suggesting is going to happen in the rest of the road
reconstruction. Could you address that? I just want to get this
behind us.
Mr. Mihalic. Mr. Chairman, I'm not quite sure exactly of
the details. In the Moose Country area, we had a huge, giant
pullout that people parked in every which way they could, with
continuing to have a pullout there that we're going to try to
maintain with a little bit more direction, and it's being
redesigned. It, I believe, is made a little bit smaller, but I
think we're going to have a new base and extended pavement in
that area.
I think that without trying to prejudge our General
Management Plan and without trying to say that, This is the
direction we're going to go, what we are doing in that Moose
Country area will be very compatible with the direction of the
Management Plan, the alternative that you just referred to.
Mr. Hill. How do you respond to those that say that the
road was actually built wider to accommodate that and, by
narrowing the road now, we're reducing the accommodation for
people to stop and observe?
Mr. Mihalic. I just don't agree with that. The roadway
wasn't built to have cars parked along the edge of the road.
The roadway in that area that's being reduced from 26 to 22
feet was much wider than any other part of the 52 miles of
road, and our engineers--From an engineering standpoint, maybe
Ms. Jacoby could add, but our planners and engineers determined
we didn't need to have it that wide in that area. We're going
to maintain visitor access. We're going to maintain parking. I
think it's consistent with the proposals in the Management
Plan.
Mr. Hill. The Management Plan does, as I characterized it,
call for actually more pullouts to accommodate that in more
areas, doesn't it?
Mr. Mihalic. Yes, it does.
Mr. Hill. And so I just want to make sure that those who
might be concluding from what's occurring in that section that
they shouldn't be drawing a conclusion that that means that
we're not going to have more pullouts or accommodate----
Mr. Mihalic. In fact, in this particular section, the area
that was there before will be the same size, but it will have
some post and railing around it to better define the pullout
itself, and we're putting in one extra pullout that was
scheduled to be removed based on some of the comments that we
had during our General Management Plan. I think we're trying to
be very responsive to people who have opinions on highway
engineering, but we've engaged the Federal Highway Association
for actual engineering opinions.
Mr. Hill. And, Ms. Jacoby, do you want to comment about
that, about the width of the road and the safety issues there
and turns and that?
Ms. Jacoby. Just a general statement is that, one of the
frequent issues that we deal with on park roads is the issue of
informal parking, and that does provide safety and operational
problems. So we try to work with the Park Service to actually
define where the parking will be and to accommodate the parking
needs, but to do it in a defined area and to control the access
to and from those parking areas, because that's a frequent
point of safety interaction problems.
Mr. Hill. What about the width of the road? When you're
designing roads today, what's the standard width that you
design roads for today?
Ms. Jacoby. There's no one answer to that. It depends on
the amount of traffic you have on the road, the terrain you're
dealing with, and I would say that where we are for the Going-
to-the-Sun Road in Glacier is, we're trying to mesh what the
current vehicle uses are with the historic character of the
road and what we could feasibly enact. We don't have the
opportunity to do a lot of road widening in here because of the
nature of the road.
Mr. Hill. I understand. Particularly in the alpine region.
Ms. Jacoby. Right.
Mr. Hill. There's no doubt about that.
Going back to the issue of safety, I want to specifically
address the issue of the safety. Is there some equation that
the Highway Administration has with regard to road widths and
gradients and with regard to speed and those matters? I mean,
are there some formulas that are available for that?
Ms. Jacoby. The highway industry as a whole has some
identified standards. The National Park Service has looked--And
that industry, as a whole that I'm referring to, is the
Association of the State Highway Transportation Officials.
They've got standards defined, and we use those as guidance
materials. The National Park Service in 1984 looked at those
materials and published their own road standards that matched
those pretty much line for line, but it brings in some of the
Park road esthetics and that. So we used those two documents to
come up with what we think we need to do.
We also--We do have defined processes to identify how much
curve widening we should be using in those curves.
Mr. Hill. Is that information available in some sort of a
condensed manner that we could make available to the public so
that we can--so that folks who have written to me and others
who have raised this issue would have that available to them?
Ms. Jacoby. We could provide references for the record and
probably provide a narrative of how we go through that process
and submit that to the record.
Mr. Hill. The key point here is, obviously, you can
mitigate for narrowness by speed and other issues; right, and
how you deal with corners, and if there's some--Either you
could provide in separate written report to the Committee or if
there's some other material that's generally available, I'd
appreciate it if you'd have that. We could make it available to
those people that raised that concern.
Ms. Jacoby. We will do that.
Mr. Hill. I'd appreciate that.
[The information referred to may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Mr. Mihalic, your obligation here--You're not in
the highway business, are you? The Park Service isn't in the
business of designing highways and engineering highways? It's
your responsibility to look to the Federal Highway
Administration to consult with this?
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. The National
Park Service and--I think in terms of good government and
efficiency, there's no reason to duplicate those services in
each agency, so we look to the Federal Highway Administration
for the expertise.
Mr. Hill. And they do the design work for the design of the
highway and the specifications and actually administer--Do they
actually administer those contracts?
Mr. Mihalic. They do, but, obviously, they work with our
designers and our transportation planners. Most of our people
that work with them are landscape architects as opposed to
highway engineers. One of the reasons for that is because the
Park road experience for visitors is usually a means to some
further recreational or visitor experience. It's not normally
merely a means for a car to get from Point A to Point B, and it
becomes the trip----
Mr. Hill. In other words, a straight and level highway is
not necessarily the objective here?
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct. So that's why one of the
biggest things that the National Park Service, I think, has
learned in all the national parks and working with all the
roads--and as a ranger, I worked a lot of accidents--is that
the biggest thing that you can do to prevent accidents is to
keep the speed down, and when--Many of the visitors in national
parks do not want to go fast. They want to go slow. It helps if
you provide the vehicle, in a sense, in terms of the roadway,
by having curves, by having not the standard highway road
widths, by having what we call park road standards.
And those are the standards Ms. Jacoby refers to, and most
of those road standards do focus on narrow width, curve linear
alignment and trying to keep down speed as one of the principal
issues of trying to maintain a safe highway environment for
folks in a national park.
Mr. Hill. What I was leading up to is, some have suggested
that, because of the unique nature of this road and the
complexities associated with its reconstruction, it might be
valuable to go outside the Federal Highway Administration to
seek advice and input in how the road might be designed or how
the work ought to be staged.
I mean, in this instance we're not redesigning the road in
the sense we're not going to relocate the road. We're talking
about reconstructing it, and I'd make the case that this isn't
anywhere near the typical highway. This really is retaining
wall reconstruction more than it is roadbed reconstruction;
right?
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct. There is a lot of roadbed
reconstruction in it because of the way the road was
constructed with those horse drawn scrapers and steam shovels
way back when.
Mr. Hill. So you do envision removing significant portions
of the roadbed itself or relaying the roadbed?
Mr. Mihalic. I think we have found, in a number of areas,
that part of the problems that we see on the surface or with
the retaining walls is with respect to the base, the roadbed
itself in some areas. I think we're finding that--We had people
just last week who found one new, horrendous example, and it is
some, what, 15 or 20 feet below the surface of the road.
Mr. Hill. Some kind of void or something?
Ms. Jacoby. Yeah.
Mr. Hill. Ms. Jacoby, how about that? Does the Federal
Western Highway Administration have experience with something
that you could characterize as similar to this road and this
kind of an environment with this kind of challenge?
Ms. Jacoby. Definitely. We just completed a project or
we're in the process of completing a project this week in Mt.
Rainier National Park in the state of Washington where the road
construction techniques are very similar to what we're talking
about for Going-for-the-Sun Road.
Mr. Hill. How large of a section of road was that?
Ms. Jacoby. That was only eight-tenths of a mile, but it's
only one piece of another alpine section of road.
Mr. Hill. How long did it take it to be constructed?
Ms. Jacoby. For eight-tenths of a mile, we've done it in
one season. We've not completed the masonry work, and we've not
placed the final pavement surface, but we've gone in and
stabilized the walls, put in parapet walls without the final
masonry finish and trued up the roadway for its use until we--
--
Mr. Hill. And was that road closed during that
reconstruction?
Ms. Jacoby. It was closed Monday through Thursday at five
o'clock, and then the public had access to it Thursday evening,
Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That was the traffic management plan
we worked out with the Park Service there and the local
businesses, but if I could elaborate on some other point.
What has happened to date is that, our efforts with the
Park Service--we've actually gone out and talked to Canadian
highway officials and other State officials in the continental
U.S. and Alaska that deal with cold weather construction
techniques, so while it's the Federal Highway Administration
that's been providing the engineering input to the Park Service
at this point, we have gone through and done literature
searches and talked with our partners in the industry to see if
there's something new that we could be incorporating in this
road.
Mr. Hill. When you made reference in your testimony to the
experience, I think, in 1995 with the reconstruction effort,
what were the problems that developed in that project in your
mind?
Ms. Jacoby. I'm personally going to have to either defer to
a staff member from my office, because I did not work in that
office in 1995--I just know it didn't work or if--or if Dave
wants to talk----
Mr. Hill. Sure.
Mr. Mihalic. I'll be happy to kind of give you a general
overview. The biggest problems that I think occurred were the
fact that we tried night work, and part of the problem with
night work is that, to maintain traffic every day as opposed to
several days a week and then work on it several days a week, as
Ms. Jacoby just related with respect to Mt. Rainier, is a fact
that a portion of the time is getting back to the point you
were the night before. So you spend a couple of hours or at
least some time getting to the point where you can make
progress, further progress, and then before the road opens the
next morning, you have to put the road back so that the public
can then, therefore, use it. That's one of the issues, together
with the fact that it's cold. It's rainy. It could be dark.
You're having to use lights to--you know, artificial lighting
and so on in terms of a safety issue, but just the fact that
you're expending some of your time just getting to a point
where you can make progress.
The biggest thing during the day, I think, from the
public's point of view, was that we allowed the contractor, I
believe, 25-minute closures, and during that time, the traffic
backed up so far that it would take 2 or 3 hours to get the
traffic--because we could only move one lane at a time, to get
all the traffic moving to a point where they could have another
25-minute closure. The folks behind us might know differently,
but I've been told that on some days things were so bad that
they'd have one period of closure in the morning, and traffic
would be disrupted for the rest of the day, and they would,
literally, have to just do things that they could do around the
fact that traffic was moving until they could get a second
closure either late in the day and, on some days, maybe not
even get a second closure.
That was part of the problem that ran that job, which
originally was scheduled to be 1 year and finishing up the
second year, to end up being a 2-year job, and it finished up
the third year.
Mr. Hill. How large of a section of road was that?
Mr. Mihalic. It was less than a half a mile. It was right
at Oberland Bend, from Logan Pass around the corner, and it was
all in just one short section.
Mr. Hill. I guess what I'm leading up to--I'm not sure
there's an answer to this, but what have we learned from that?
It didn't work out like you thought it was going to.
Mr. Mihalic. The biggest thing that we learned at that time
was that--And I'm told it was seven-tenths of a mile. It looked
like a half a mile to me.
Mr. Hill. It was on a curve.
Mr. Mihalic. The biggest thing I think we learned is that
we had in our program--And I can't remember which year it was
to begin. We had some three miles along the Rimrock section,
which, for the public that knows the road, is the high alpine
section just immediately preceding Logan Pass on the west
side--But we had a three-mile section of road that, working
with Federal Highway engineers, our folks had thought we could
do in 2 years, and they came back after that, and they said,
Well, we think now if we cut it in half we could do it in 7
years.
That was about the time that we started asking, Well, just
how long will it take us to do it, given the fact that the way
we do road construction is not in a comprehensive manner, but
it's strictly driven by the dollars that we get out of the
total pot of park roadway money that's allocated to Glacier? We
take the money we get. We find a project to fit it.
Mr. Hill. In fact, I've made note to make that point, and
my understanding is that, right now, the funding that you get
comes from an allocation that's made to the Park Service, and
it's allocated to this Park and Yellowstone and all the other
parks, and you, I would presume, have some sort of a queuing
system that you go into for those dollars, and that's how it's
handled; right?
Mr. Mihalic. It's all on a competition basis where we
compete with roads within our region, which includes
Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain National
Park, and then we further compete with roadway needs across the
nation.
Mr. Hill. But what we're proposing here is to actually have
Congress appropriate funds independent of that park allocation
or to direct the Park Service to use its allocation to this
purpose. That's part of what the Management Plan now
contemplates, as opposed to how it's now handled, at least the
preferred alternative.
Mr. Mihalic. The Management Plan would not suggest your
first alternative, certainly. That would be way beyond their
bounds, but what the Management Plan is suggesting is that, by
continuing to go about it the way we have been, driven by the
dollar allocation that we get--and it's a very small
allocation----
Mr. Hill. Which is, what, $3 million a year?
Mr. Mihalic. It's a couple of million dollars a year. It's,
like, $3 to $4 million every other year, so it ends up being
about a couple million dollars a year. That to continue to try
to do the comprehensive project in that manner literally will
take decades. I say ``Decades'' because I've been told 30
years, 40 years or 50 years.
Mr. Hill. In the recent highway bill, do you recall how
much was allocated to parks, to all the parks?
Mr. Mihalic. It was about $182 million, I believe, in
appropriation, but there's $20 million that's set aside for
another project. I believe the Park Service ends up with about
$161----
Mr. Hill. For this year?
Mr. Mihalic. No. Each year. That's correct.
Mr. Hill. Each year. So in other words, there's $150 or
$160 million dollars per year for the next 5 years from now----
Mr. Mihalic. About $165 million a year.
Mr. Hill. [continuing] for all the parks and all the roads
and----
Mr. Mihalic. We're competing with 370 national park areas.
Mr. Hill. The Management Plan contemplates that this
project will be handled, at least to some extent, independent
of that?
Mr. Mihalic. What it suggests is that, to be fiscally
responsible, we ought to do it in some sort of broader,
comprehensive manner, rather than look at road construction up
on that road, which is of tremendous impact on public use,
every year for the next 30, 40 or 50 years.
Mr. Hill. Ms. Jacoby, has the Federal Highway
Administration solicited any input from outside parties,
engineering groups, construction, design/build organizations,
et cetera, to look at this project in terms of how you're
looking at--how we might handle the scheduling issue and the
staging problems that we experienced in 1995?
Ms. Jacoby. At this point, other than talking with other
industry officials that I referenced earlier, no, we have not.
The efforts we have done to date have been really conceptual in
format to identify techniques that could be used, and some of
that information we had internally. Some of that information we
learned through talking with other State and Canadian highway
officials.
We are not in design at this point. We've been doing the
conceptual planning with the Park Service, and we've been doing
data gathering as far as surveying or field data collection,
but we've been waiting----
Mr. Hill. But you haven't gone outside the Highway
Administration?
Ms. Jacoby. No.
Mr. Hill. Do you think it's a good idea that you did?
Ms. Jacoby. At this point I don't know what we would have
asked. We're not into design. We've got no funding for design.
We're waiting for the Park Service to select a preferred
alternative as a result of this Management Plan and to
collectively have the Park Service and Federal Highway
Administration go into the final design of this project.
Mr. Hill. But, you know, there's a bit of a chicken and egg
thing here. If you're going to wait for the conclusion of the
Management Plan before you contemplate the issues of staging
and scheduling--I mean, the choices that are made in this
Management Plan assume that those decisions have been made. I
mean, they're built into the decision, if you're going to do it
5 years or you're going to do it 15 years.
So the question that I'm asking is, do you think that there
would be some value in seeking some outside input at this point
in looking at this issue and this set of issues at this stage
of the game? We're going to be making some decisions that are
going to be, theoretically, irreversible here if the Management
Plan is adopted and Congress supports it.
Ms. Jacoby. What's in the Management Plan right now is
based on the concepts we know that are available in the
industry, and the timeframes and the dollars that are outlined
in there provide some flexibility on how they would be
implemented.
Mr. Hill. When you say, Concepts in the industry----
Ms. Jacoby. As far as whether you would go in and have
precast roadside barriers versus building that barrier onsite,
whether you can--when you have to do concrete work in the cold
weather, what you can do to still get good concrete but knowing
that you're trying to extend your construction season on the
alpine section. We've talked to the industry on what they've
done, if they did pave in less than desirable weather
conditions.
Mr. Hill. When you're talking about talking to the
industry, then you have consulted with engineering firms and
construction companies outside the Highway Administration, or
has that consultation been within the----
Ms. Jacoby. The consultation has been with the State
Departments of Transportation as far as what they're
implementing and with the Canadian Department of Transportation
or whatever their structure is in Canada.
Mr. Hill. Let me ask, again, the question. Do you think
there would be some value in seeking some input from outside
organizations, engineering firms, construction companies that
have dealt with some of these issues in other ways? Do you
think there's some value in that?
Ms. Jacoby. I think the value comes when we actually start
putting the pieces together and get more detailed about talking
staging and manpower.
Mr. Hill. So the answer is, Yes, or, No?
Ms. Jacoby. The answer is, Yes, there's value in doing it.
It's being smart about when you do it.
Mr. Hill. There's some who think that we could actually
bring some creative ideas to the table now if we went outside
the environment that we're in now and, I mean, given the fact
that those are--we're going to be making some of those
decisions before we actually get the design in terms of how the
Management Plan is adopted----
Ms. Jacoby. Right.
Mr. Hill. [continuing] that this would be a good time
perhaps to do that. Do you need direction from Congress to do
that, or would it be helpful if Congress gave that direction?
Ms. Jacoby. I don't need that direction, sir. I guess what
I'm looking at is that, I see the alternatives to the
Management Plan where we lay out a scheme on how we're going to
manage traffic, and they really don't deal with the engineering
solutions to the issues. The alternatives in there----
Mr. Hill. I mean, part of the engineering issue here is how
the work is staged and scheduled and laid out, whether you
close the road or don't, how you accommodate use of the Park.
That's part of this decision, and it will be part of the
design; right? I mean, it will be part of--I mean, how you--
what sequence you allow--let contracts, if you do it in
multiple contracts, how you stage restoring supplies, where you
get gravel, where a hot plant--I mean, all those are issues
that will be changed, depending upon how you went about staging
this work; right? They would all change, depending on how you
went about staging this work; right?
Ms. Jacoby. They would all change, depending on how we've
staged the work, and we've provided that information to the
Park Service in the preparation of the Management Plan. All
those items will also change, depending on how the work is
actually funded and whether we get the funding when we need it.
Mr. Hill. Going on on this--Dave, one of the questions that
has been raised--and I'd ask you to respond to--is that, it
appears as though in the Management Plan that there--Obviously,
there's a big effort here in terms of allocation of dollars to
the reconstruction of the road, and it seems to ignore the need
for road maintenance. I mean, if you take 10 years to rebuild
this road or 15 years or 6 years, there's going to have to also
be some ongoing maintenance of the sections of the road that
have already been done; right?
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct.
Mr. Hill. Where does that come into this equation? Is that
going to be some supplemental funding? Do you think you'll get
an allocation from the Park Service in addition to this
project? Will you use FEMA? You have funds now that you're
getting from increased fees. Are you anticipating allocating
some of those to that effort?
Mr. Mihalic. Obviously, it would be wonderful, as happened
with the Beartooth, if we got road construction funding that we
also got maintenance funding along with it. Maintenance of park
roads comes out of our operation of the National Park Service
allocation, and that allocation is part of the normal budget
process with the Department of Interior and the Office of
Management and Budget and----
Mr. Hill. I mean, you're hopeful, is where we are. There's
one other thing I want to go on, and then, just so the people
understand, you're going to come back later, after we hear from
the members of the public, and we can carry on this
conversation some more, because--Hopefully, we'll have some
valuable input.
One of the questions that I have goes to the economic
impacts. Dave, you and I have talked some about that. I don't
know than we necessarily agree about that, but let me just ask
you a couple of questions.
One, nowhere in the economic analysis that I have seen is
there any analysis of the economic impacts to the Park itself,
revenues to the Park, revenues--how that would impact the
budget of the Park----
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct.
Mr. Hill. [continuing] and, basically, no analysis of how
that would impact the concessions within the Park or the
concessionaires within the Park.
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct.
Mr. Hill. Is that by design?
Mr. Mihalic. I don't believe so, sir. I think, you know,
the Management Plan is to provide general guidance. It's to
provide a direction. It seemed to me that this issue was such a
huge issue that, if we were to just assume that we can
reconstruct this road over the next several decades the way we
have been doing it and not consider it in a General Management
Plan that we would be doing two things. First, we wouldn't be
being very honest with the public about what to expect in their
national Park over the next 20 years, but, second, that we
wouldn't be giving them an opportunity to say if they wanted to
do it--have it be done any other way. So we included the Sun
Road issue in the Management Plan.
As part of that general management planning process, we
looked at what to do with the Sun Road, and we've come a
tremendous distance with respect to how the Sun Road should be
managed, and what we're proposing is that the Sun Road not be
turned into a tramway, not be turned into a monorail, not be
turned into a railway, not be turned into a bike path or a
hiking trail, but continue its historic use by the private
automobile and general use by the American public as an example
of one of the most spectacular roadways in the world.
The real issue is how to get there, and we recognized that
there was going to be an economic impact, regardless of the
different ways of how to get there, and so we took the funding
that we had available for that, and we asked the contractor to
tell us the economic impact to the state of Montana in the best
way they could in the time that they had to do that.
The Park is not there for the benefit of the
concessionaire. The concessionaire works as a contractor for
the National Park Service to provide visitor services for us.
The National Park does not exist for the economic benefit of
the contractor. The fact that there are economic benefits
around the Park are wonderful because they--That's stuff that
we don't have to provide, and we couldn't really best serve our
public without them, and so we do want to minimize any economic
impact.
What we tried to do is that--We tried to address everything
in a comprehensive manner, and the contractor--The economic
impact contractor was asked to include the concessionaires, not
in specifics, but in the broader sense, with the economic
figures for the state of Montana. The local businesses were the
same. We didn't ask for it to be strictly local because we know
that if somebody turns right in Miles City and heads up toward
Glacier National Park it's going to have an economic impact to
communities along the High Line.
So we didn't want to try to limit it in any way, and with
what we have--We've got a general overlook, and the specifics
may be--As you have said, some of the underpinnings may not be
as strong as they could be. If we had an approved project and
had approved direction to look at this road construction in
some greater comprehensive manner, then we could have--the
funding, I would assume, would come with that to do such
economic studies to make sure we got the right solution in the
end.
Mr. Hill. The concern--I guess what I'm leading up to is
that, in your opinion is it the responsibility of the Park
Service to mitigate the economic impacts on the Park itself?
Mr. Mihalic. That's not what Congress has told us our
responsibility is, no, sir.
Mr. Hill. OK. What is your responsibility, then? What in
your judgment is your responsibility in terms of the Park
itself, the Park, the budget----
Mr. Mihalic. With respect to the economic----
Mr. Hill. Yeah.
Mr. Mihalic. I think that what we have here is almost a
classic tale of Aesop's fable in which we have a goose that's
laying golden eggs, and if we want to have those eggs continue
to provide economic benefit from the Park, then we need to make
sure that that goose is a healthy goose.
Mr. Hill. I understand that.
Mr. Mihalic. This national park has resources and--that are
spectacular in terms of the scenery, has animals that people
can see from the road. Just yesterday morning I was able to see
a bear on the east side of the Park. That's what the public
wants to see, so our responsibility is to ensure that that
national park is a healthy national park with basic
infrastructure to serve Park visitors. Some of those other
visitor needs, rightfully, should be assumed by the private
economy outside the Park. They're not an inherited government
function, and I would think they wouldn't be our
responsibility.
Mr. Hill. That's what I wanted to spend some time talking
about, because in the contemplation of this, maybe that's
something Congress should look at. What I think I hear you
saying is that, as part of the development of the Management
Plan--and we're confining, at this point, to the discussion of
the road--is that it is your view that the Park Service doesn't
have an obligation to conduct this reconstruction in a fashion
that would mitigate--I'm talking responsibility now. To
mitigate the economic impacts even to the Park itself. Is that
what you're saying?
Mr. Mihalic. No, sir. I'm saying that--I'm saying that our
responsibility is set up in more than just one particular area,
and on page 49 of our Management Plan overview, we've said
that, The National Park Service prefers an alternative that
preserves the historic character of the road, completes the
repairs before the road fails, minimizes the impact on natural
resources, visitors and the local economy and minimizes the
costs.
So we think that the impact on the local economy is
certainly part of our responsibility, but it's not the first
part, nor is it the only part, and I think that what we want to
ensure is that we can choose the alternative that best
minimizes the impact.
To date two studies have shown that the longer the work
drags on the more the economic pain. If there's a better
solution that will do a better job that accomplishes all of
those other goals and even further minimizes the local economic
impact, I'm all for that, but I'm not sure that it's the
National Park Service's responsibility to produce a solution
that first goes to the greatest effort to minimizing that local
economic impact.
Mr. Hill. As a matter of fact, I agree with you about that,
but what I'm just trying to get the point to here is that,
either it is part of your responsibility or not. I'm not trying
to suggest that----
Mr. Mihalic. I think it is part of our responsibility.
Mr. Hill. You agree this is part of your responsibility----
Mr. Mihalic. Yes.
Mr. Hill. [continuing] both to the Park and to the
communities, the gateway communities, the people that are
directly impacted, and you've made the case that people as far
as away as Glasgow could be impacted if it diminishes people
who would travel across Highway 2 to the Park, and that's
accurate. But I think you would agree that the closer you get
to the Park the greater the impact is going to be if, in fact,
we reduce visitorship to the Park. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct. I would agree with that.
Mr. Hill. That's one of the quarrels I have with the
economic study is that the economic study didn't do anything to
try to iden-
tify the different levels of impact that would occur based upon
proximity to the Park, and I want to be careful here that--
We're talking about the economic impacts only because that's
where I have the largest quarrel with what has taken place at
this point, not necessarily because I think it's the most
important thing, and I certainly don't think it's the most
important thing. I would agree with your assessment, but it is
an important thing.
I would just draw the parallel. If we were talking about
the impact on endangered species and we were talking about the
proximity of a denning area to the road and we were just going
say, Generally, this isn't going to impact grizzly bears, even
though we're going to put a gravel pit at a denning area,
people would say, Well, no. You've got to be more specific
about that. Or if we were going to, you know, locate a hot
plant in a location where there was an endangered plant species
that could endanger that species particularly, people would
say, Well, no. We've got to find a way to locate it in another
area because we've got to mitigate that impact and, perhaps in
that instance, totally mitigate that impact.
I would simply make the argument that in the area of the
economy we have some responsibility to do what we can to
mitigate that impact, and the more specific you get, the better
job you can do. The more general you get, the less likely
you're going to have a good outcome. That's one of my quarrels
with the economic analysis that's been done so far.
The second is that the economic analysis and the analysis
that has been done of the economic analysis are based upon some
assumptions that I think are not reliable, and that is that
this is substantially based upon a fairly casual survey that
was taken of people traveling through the Park, a relatively
small sample and, I think, an inappropriate sample and that
even the conclusions that were drawn from that sample are
inaccurate conclusions, and then they're replicated in the
analysis. If those assumptions are wrong--and I think there's
reason to believe that they are--then the whole analysis has
relatively little value.
That's a concern that I have, Dave. We don't need to beat
about that.
Mr. Mihalic. No, sir. I think it's a very valid concern,
and I think it's a very real concern. I don't know whether--
With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether the
concern is, in fact, correct. In all of the economic or other
socioscience studies that I'm familiar with in the National
Park Service, the samples that can determine a confidence level
do not have to be all encompassing in order to give you a
fairly good confidence level.
I think that the study here gives us a good, broad, general
direction to go. Does it give us specifics? No, it doesn't, and
in that regard you may, in fact, be correct. However, I would
think that it's probably more right than it is wrong. In the
study itself, it recognized that, while the estimates are for
the whole state, the impacts would be disproportionately felt
on communities nearer the Park. It just doesn't say how
disproportionately it would be felt.
Mr. Hill. Let me just ask you, Dave. If that report said
that this road building would have a disproportionate affect on
grizzly bears than it would on bald eagles, do you think the
community will say, OK. That's all right?
Mr. Mihalic. No, sir.
Mr. Hill. You would have to define that?
Mr. Mihalic. Of course you would. I think the biggest thing
that we've taken away from this economic impact analysis is
this one point, and that is, the longer the work drags on, the
greater the economic pain, and so it reinforced our concern
that we should seek a better solution than merely dragging out
the work over decades.
Our concern also, although it's not expressed in the plan
or in the economic analysis, was the fact that the Park road
construction every year probably has a detrimental impact to
the local economy, and if visitors say, Gosh, it's a great
experience, but be ready for road delays, every year, every
year, every year, that, too, has an economic impact.
So that's why we really tried to seek a more comprehensive
solution. We came up with two ways working with our highway
experts, and the general, overall economic analysis for those
ways was that quicker was better, and if there's a better way,
I will be happy to embrace it.
Mr. Hill. I want to make clear. I'm not disagreeing with
you about any of this.
Mr. Mihalic. I know.
Mr. Hill. What I am saying, though--then we'll move on
here--is that you can't mitigate impacts you haven't
identified.
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct. I agree with you. You sure
can't.
Mr. Hill. My view of the study to date is that it doesn't
identify--sufficiently identify those impacts, and so it's
almost impossible for you to develop a plan to mitigate it.
Mr. Mihalic. It doesn't except for the fact that we felt
that it went far enough to look at the broad, general direction
in terms of a comprehensive plan. You're very correct that it
does not go anywhere near to mitigating the impacts if we were
to choose one without any further study.
Mr. Hill. Let me just get one last question, and then we're
going to let you rest. That is, are you willing to work with
the interests that are involved in these local communities to
minimize these economic impacts?
Mr. Mihalic. Absolutely.
Mr. Hill. OK. We'll talk later about how we can get that
done, but there's no doubt that you feel a responsibility to do
that, and there's a commitment on your part to do that?
Mr. Mihalic. There's no doubt, Mr. Chairman. I think that
it would have been very easy during my tenure as superintendent
of Glacier to pass this one by and to let it explode some time
down the road. I truly believe that we are much better off to
face these things head-on and work together and develop some
sort of comprehensive solution before we need to, and that,
honest to goodness, is my greatest concern.
Within the first year I was here, a part of that road fell
off that mountain, and we even brought--We even brought part of
the headlines, and it had a profound impact on me, and that led
me to ask Ms. Jacoby's predecessor, Just what plans have we got
if that were to occur? Do we even know where it would occur? We
didn't know where it would occur. We had no knowledge of the
total condition of the road. Everything was in broad, general
parameters.
It seemed to me that, as tough of a pill as this is to even
contemplate swallowing, we are far better off trying to work
together to come to the best solution for all concerned rather
than to just say, Well, we'll turn a blind eye to it, and if it
happens, we'll deal with it then. I was just trying to be
comprehensive.
I still think that we can work together and get to the end,
and it will be better for the local economy, not worse.
Mr. Hill. Let me just say this. I compliment you on that.
It's hard to face down the tough issues sometimes, particularly
when there's no easy solution, and I agree with you. You and I
have had private conversations. I am absolutely committed to do
what I can do to help us find a solution and then to fight for
what that solution is.
Mr. Mihalic. I know you are. I'll be there with you.
Mr. Hill. All right. It's going to take a lot of work on a
lot of people's parts to do that. The purpose here is to not
deter us from finding a solution. The purpose of this meeting
to try to get--first of all, to get the community informed
about issues and then, also, to get input from the community
about, How do we accomplish the best result here? I mean, how
do we get to the place that we all know that--We have to
rebuild the road, and sooner is better than later. There's no
doubt about it. I agree with you about that.
The fact that you're starting this far ahead and--is
important, because it allows us to realistically deal with all
those issues. I compliment you on that. I appreciate the work
that you're doing in that regard.
With that we'll take a brief recess, and we'll come back
for some more discussion about that, but I'll ask the other
panel to come up. We'll take about a 5-minute recess.
Thank you, Mr. Superintendent.
Thank you, Ms. Jacoby.
[Brief recess.]
Mr. Hill. If we can take our seats and if our second panel
would come forward.
Our second panel consists of the Honorable Gary Hall, mayor
of Columbia Falls; the Honorable Lowell Meznarich, Glacier
County commissioner; Joseph Unterreiner, executive vice-
president of the Kalispell Area Chamber of Commerce; Roger
Running Crane, vice-chairman of the Blackfeet Tribe; and Will
Brooke, owner of the St. Mary KOA Campground.
Before I swear this panel in, I do want to read into the
record letters that we have received from Senator Burns and
Governor Racicot, and I'll read these into the record so that
the people who are in attendance here will have the benefit of
this.
From Senator Burns, ``I want to congratulate you for your
attention to Glacier National Park and Going-to-the-Sun Road.
It seems there are few easy answers to the infrastructure needs
of Glacier. Whatever course we take with the Going-to-the-Sun
Road, whether it be shorter term action, longer term action or
even inaction, it will have great implication for the Park and
for the families and the communities that depend upon the Park
for their survival. That is why it is extremely vital that we
have all the information and opportunities for public input
that we can afford.
``Glacier National Park is truly one of our national
treasures. We must do everything in our power, in accordance
with our stewardship of the Park system, to preserve it and
also to help provide for the demands of continued visitation.
In light of this, today's hearing is an important one, and the
Committee is to be applauded for your efforts.
``Senator Burns.''
[The prepared statement of Hon. Conrad Burns may be found
at end of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Governor Racicot writes, ``We were very pleased
to learn that the Subcommittee of the Committee on Resources
will be coming to Montana to conduct an oversight hearing on
management options regarding the Going-to-the-Sun highway
within Glacier National Park. Glacier National Park is valuable
to Montanans and Americans in so many ways. It is truly one of
Montana's most unique and special places to visit. In addition,
it provides a key component to the economic well-being of many
communities in the Flathead and surrounding areas.
``Because we hold such strong feelings about Glacier and
because of its extraordinary economic importance, I'm very
pleased that you've had the foresight to hold an oversight
hearing into the future management of Going-to-the-Sun Highway.
``As you are very aware, Glacier National Park has released
for public review their draft Environmental Impact Statement
and General Management Plan. The complex and difficult issues
addressed in this document will be subject to more discussion
and review because the Park and future management options for
the Park are significantly important both economically and
ecologically to our state.
``You have spent much time examining this issue, and I know
one of the most complex components of the plan deals with the
famous Going-to-the-Sun Highway. While most will recognize that
the highway is in need of repair, just how to accomplish the
reconstruction is not clear. It is worthy of the review and
attention of the Subcommittee hearing that will be--that the
Subcommittee's hearing will provide.
``One very important component in any successful solution
will be Congress and the issue of funding. This will be no
doubt an expensive multiyear contract, and having Members of
the Congressional Subcommittee in Montana to hear from
Montanans and Park officials is very important to any
successful solution.
``We have informed the National Park Service of our intent
to carefully review and analyze the draft Environmental Impact
Statement. After our review and analysis is complete, the State
of Montana will submit formal comments. As with other efforts
of this nature, we will utilize the expertise and various
disciplines within State government, which will include this
office and the Departments of Fish, Wildlife and Parks,
Environmental Quality, Commerce, Natural Resources and
Conservation and Transportation. As well, we will be listening
to and evaluating comments which come to us from the local and
tribal governments and other interested parties.
``Again, thank you for your leadership and for conducting
this hearing. We look forward to continuing to work with you
and other Members of Congress, the National Park Service and
others as we consider future management options for Glacier
National Park.
``Sincerely, Marc Racicot, Governor.''
[The prepared statement of Hon. Marc Racicot follows:]
Mr. Hill. If each of you would stand and raise your right
hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Hill. What we will do--again, I would ask members of
the panels to try to keep their comments to 5 minutes, their
public statements. If the statement is longer than that, we
will make it a part of the permanent record, and we will start
with Mayor Hall.
STATEMENT OF GARY HALL, MAYOR OF COLUMBIA FALLS, MONTANA
Mr. Hall. I begin this 5-minute dissertation by sincerely
thanking Representative Hill for his definite leadership and
concern for this most important event in Montana's history. On
behalf of small businesses of the Flathead Valley, we truly
thank you. We, as you know, are a minority, and it is real nice
to know that we are being considered and given a voice at this
most crucial time.
I don't believe that the GNP is out to hurt small business,
but I do believe that there are some inequities in the
Alternative A road closures. I applaud the efforts put forth by
GNP and by the reports and the willingness to listen to the
community, so I would ask that you listen real carefully today
to all that is brought before you.
The Federal Highway Administration proposed a 15-year
reconstruction plan with partial closures and several untried
measures to allow visitor use, but GNP did not offer this to
us, and we are wondering why.
At Representative Hill's last meeting in Kalispell, a man
from the Department of Transportation told us how rock walls
can be built on the Valley floor and be lifted in place, which
can save many days and many dollars. Please listen to Mr.
Hill's suggestion of getting outside input for reconstruction
ideas.
Another concern is that there has not been a formal
engineering study done on the road, and that should be a
concern for all of us. We must know all the facts before
pushing hundreds of businesses to the edge of extinction. We
have made everyone aware that up to this point there is not a
citizens' advisory board in place, and we just insist on having
that in place before we move any further.
The economic study that was done at the University of
Montana was good, but one of my concerns is the talk of
promoting people to come and plan their vacation around
observing the construction. No matter how you look at it or
present it, it's a bad deal. I know that if I'm going to spend
an average of $206 per person per day in the Park, why in the
world would I want to spend it doing that? It would be a
marketing miracle to pull that one off, and one we shouldn't
risk.
People who don't own a business or whose hopes and dreams
aren't hinging on whether the road closes or not will get their
say today and tomorrow, for example, newspapers, others whose
jobs are not directly affected by the road being closed.
Please hear the heartfelt concerns of the business
community. They will not be able to recover their businesses
once closed.
I also believe that the public deserves a full and separate
environmental and economic review of the options. Also, it
seems that we may be putting the cart before the horse. We are
beginning this process without committed funding. Are we going
to close the Park for reconstruction and then try to get the
funding? I would sincerely hope not.
There has been talk of the importance of communication and
marketing. GNP needs to communicate to people now and forever
that Logan Pass is and should always be open no matter what the
scenario we come to. Once again, we must take the word
``Closure'' out of our vocabulary, literally.
Also, by the information given to the media and the press
to this point about the road being shut down for
reconstruction, we have had a minimum decline in tourism to the
state of 20 percent. We cannot expect the general public to
understand all that is going on at this end.
I also find it disturbing that the road reconstruction plan
ended up in the General Management Plan in March. We got a
basic explanation for that today, but I would ask that it be
removed. NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, demands
that any major construction of this nature must have its own
Environmental Impact Statement. The construction of Going-to-
the-Sun Road should be removed from the General Management
Plan.
No one has ment around the other side, but don't advertise
the C word.
No. 2, do everything possible to keep the $160 million
income and 2,400 jobs going strong in this area.
A suggestion by a local business directly affected by the
proposal is to extend the Many Glacier Road to the North Fork
Road, which would create a loop. This would allow repair of the
road to happen at any time, even emergency closures by
accidents, rock slides and so forth. It would also make
opportunity for campsites off the North Fork Road from Camas
Creek to Columbia Falls, thus taking pressure off of the Park.
Last--And I hate to end on this note, but to let you know
how serious local businesses are to being sure that they are
protected, there is in place substantial dollars from even only
two businesses so far that would be applied to a class action
lawsuit, if necessary, to protect our businesses and our
futures, not a desired action.
Again, thank you very, very much for allowing me to express
these grave concerns as an elected official along with the
views of other local business people directly affected by the
road closure idea. Please help us stay in business.
Respectfully submitted, Gary Hall, Mayor.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mayor Hall, for that valuable
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Our next witness will be the Honorable County
Commissioner Lowell Meznarich.
Mr. Meznarich. Meznarich.
Mr. Hill. Meznarich. I understand that. Rich and Rick.
People confuse my name that way too. I apologize.
STATEMENT OF LOWELL MEZNARICH, GLACIER COUNTY COMMISSIONER
Mr. Meznarich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Lowell Meznarich, and I'm an elected
commissioner representing Glacier County. All of Glacier
National Park, which is east of the Continental Divide is in my
county. Given that fact, all issues which affect Glacier
National Park are important to us.
My fellow commissioners and I have cautiously monitored the
discussions regarding the future maintenance and repair of the
Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Simultaneously,
we have questioned the population to obtain their input on the
matter at hand. I am pleased to have this opportunity to offer
our collective thoughts.
No local issue in the past 5 years has seen greater
scrutiny than the options given to repair the Going-to-the-Sun
Road. All of the options will be harmful to the tourism
industry in northwestern Montana. There is a solution, however.
The fast-track option, coupled with several other
enhancements, has the potential to get the work done
effectively, while also providing a unique opportunity to
assist the east side of the Park in reducing its tourism loss.
I am strongly in favor of the fast-track option and reducing
the impact on the economy by taking advantage of an upcoming
significant event.
Enhancement No. 1. The closure of the east side of the road
should coincide with the observance of the Bicentennial of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition. The large increase in visitors for
the Bicentennial will help a great deal with the expected
reduction in visitors to Glacier National Park because of the
road work and closure. Planning to have these two events at the
same time will be a tremendous benefit to Glacier County.
The years 2004 through 2006 would be ideal for the east
side closure. This is important since within 25 miles of Cut
Bank, the Glacier County seat are two of the most significant
sites along the Lewis and Clark Trail. The first, Camp
Disappointment, is where Meriweather Lewis and three of his
party discovered that the Missouri River drainage did not cover
as much territory to the north as originally hoped. The dreary,
overcast day not only added to the disappointment, it also
obscured the Rocky Mountains, which were just to the west.
Had the day been clearer, Lewis would have plainly seen the
opening to Marias Pass, the lowest elevation pass through the
Rocky Mountains. Lewis was within easy sight of one of his most
significant potential discoveries, but he would never know. The
possibilities of that missed discovery have been romanticized
for years.
The fight site is the location of the following day's camp.
At this site Lewis encountered and camped with a group of
Blackfeet Indians. The following morning was the only armed
conflict of the entire expedition. The fight over horses and
weapons resulted in the death of two of the Blackfeet party and
a close call for Lewis who wrote, ``Being bare headed at the
time, I plainly felt the ball pass over my head.''
This encounter took place near the banks of the Two
Medicine River in an area which historians consider the most
primitive and least changed in the nearly 200 years since the
explorers' journey. Use of this site will also provide an
additional introduction to the Blackfeet Indian culture, which
is another of the great treasures of our region.
The residents of Glacier County are quickly learning that
the upcoming Bicentennial is gaining national and international
attention. Already, Glacier County residents have taken the
first few sparks of interest, added their entrepreneurial
spirit and developed creative business ventures to cash in on
the expected rush of adventuresome tourists. With the expected
increase in visitors to our area I believe we can significantly
reduce the negative impact of the closure of the east side of
the road. A carefully crafted promotion would be very
beneficial to Glacier County.
Enhancement No. 2. Regarding the Lewis and Clark Trail
sites, we need assistance to improve access opportunities to
the sites themselves. Traveling to each site presently requires
driving on undeveloped roads, followed by a walk of up to one
mile. The roads are one lane only and are often not more than
slightly worn paths through the natural grass. The walk is over
easy terrain, but the path is not clearly visible in many
areas.
Any improvement should maintain the present condition of
the sites and not detract from the natural state each site
presently enjoys. As such, many portions of the road and trail
will merely need simple markings to keep the traveler on the
proper path. Other areas may need compaction work and/or a
light gravel application.
Much like the work in Glacier National Park, any
improvements to these sites must preserve and protect the area.
Little has changed since Lewis appeared at these sites. We need
to keep it that way, since that is precisely why these sites
appeal to a significant number of Americans. These improvements
could be accomplished with a very small amount of funding.
Both sites are located on and accessible only through
private land. I believe we must immediately pursue public
acquisition of the sites and access. If that not possible, in
the least we must have agreements in place which allow for
public maintenance and access when appropriate.
Glacier National Park Enhancement No. 3. Glacier National
Park must do everything in its power to trumpet what is
available to the visitors and downplay the Going-to-the-Sun
Road closure. We don't need the headline to scream that the
road is closed. Instead, leading up to and during the east side
closure, national and international promotions should extol the
uncommon beauty of our many east side areas, Two Medicine, St.
Mary's, Many Glaciers and even Canada's Waterton National Park.
Promoting jointly with Waterton should become a priority.
The opportunities to experience the Lewis and Clark sites
should also be a significant part of the promotion.
Enhancement No. 4 has been discussed. Let's get the job
done. Let's not have the types of delays that have plagued
previous construction projects.
Enhancement No. 5. Glacier National Park must accept
primary responsibility for repair and maintenance of Highway
49, which is known as the Looking Glass Road. This road is the
north/south link between East Glacier Park, Two Medicine and
St. Mary's.
The road was originally constructed by the National Park
Service and for years was maintained by them. Since it is
outside the Park boundary, the Park Service has chosen to allow
the road to deteriorate. At present the Looking Glass Road is
generally open on the same calendar used by Glacier National
Park. The road is not maintained during the winter. Like the
Sun Road, the Looking Glass offers a unique view of Glacier
National Park, which is just to the west of the road. The road
itself winds along the slopes of the moun Glass Road.
With these five easily attainable enhancements, I'm
confident the Park Service will find general support for the
road repair project.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my formal comments.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Meznarich.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Meznarich may be found at
end of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Again, I would just urge all those submitting
testimony to try to stay as close as you can to the 5-minute
limit.
Our next testimony will come from Joe Unterreiner,
executive vice-president of the Kalispell Area Chamber of
Commerce.
Thank you for appearing, Joe.
STATEMENT OF JOE UNTERREINER, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATED CHAMBERS OF
THE FLATHEAD VALLEY
Mr. Unterreiner. I am executive vice-president of the
Kalispell Chamber. I was invited to speak as the president of
the Associated Chambers.
The Associated Chamber group is an association of six
chambers of commerce and three tourism organizations,
consisting of 1,800 businesses and organizations in northwest
Montana, and, Congressman, I'd like to applaud your efforts to
understand this issue, its implications for northwest Montana's
economy and the steps that you've taken to ensure the best
possible course of action is taken. We would like to recognize
and express our appreciation for your efforts.
The Sun Road is a critical economic, social, cultural and
historic asset of this area. There is, perhaps, no other
singular resource in the Flathead that effects more people both
personally and professionally than the Sun Road. It is
essential that this road be maintained and repaired in a way
that provides for the enjoyment of future generations while
minimizing the economic and social impact to the current
generation.
There are several things we think that Congress can do to
help achieve this goal: One, ensure that the best possible road
construction expertise is applied to this engineering challenge
and make impact reduction the highest priority; two, provide
public education funding to minimize projected visitation
losses as part of the appropriation request; three, provide
financial relief for those businesses most severely affected by
the negative impacts of reconstruction; four, utilize business
input; and, five, provide adequate funding for national park
roads.
I'd first like to note that data from the University of
Montana's Institute for Tourism and Recreational Research has
indicated that 25 percent of nonresident tourists to Montana
come here primarily to see Glacier National Park. This is a
destination tourism attraction that benefits not just the
Glacier areas, but other cities and towns that line the roads
to and from the Park. They come because the Going-to-the-Sun
Road, a national historic landmark, offers some of the most
spectacular scenery anywhere in North America.
The National Park Service and the Federal Highway
Administration have developed three concepts for preserving the
road. We think this is a good start, and we'd like to see a
process begun that further refines these alternatives. The two
economic impact studies have both concluded that the fast-track
option, the 4- to 6-year option has the least economic impact
and the lowest cost of construction, and this is the Park's
preferred alternative.
However, it is now time to refine the two action
alternatives by using the best experts available, including
financial incentive to complete the work as quickly as possible
and completing the formal engineering study.
The findings of two economic studies on this issue indicate
that the quicker construction is completed the more negative
impacts are minimized. Therefore, every effort should be made
to explore techniques that might hasten the reconstruction
period. Sections of retaining wall might be prefabricated
offsite, for example, or perhaps some international firms that
have extensive expertise in high-altitude road work might have
innovations to offer.
We'd like to see a bid structure that provides incentives
for early completion. If we examine the reconstruction of
Interstate 10 in Los Angeles after the Northridge quake, we can
see how financial incentives were effectively used. The time of
completion was substantially reduced by running around-the-
clock shifts. This more aggressive approach might reduce the
time of the fast-track option or reduce the time on the
accelerated option to a more acceptable timeframe. If the
National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration
are prohibited from using such incentives for early completion,
we urge Congress to waive that restriction for this project.
We would like to also indicate our support for the efforts
of Congressman Hill and Senator Burns to have a formal
engineering study produced on the Sun Road. We may find that
some sections do not need reconstruction.
In any event, loss of visitation and its resulting impact
on business losses must be viewed as real costs in preserving
the Sun Road. Early completion incentives can be justified when
weighed against the total cost of economic loss and the impact
on communities. Reducing these negative impacts must be given
our highest priority.
We'd like to see an appropriation request include a fully
funded--fully developed public education program to help offset
visitor losses. We think that this can help offset--And we
encourage Congress to fund and implement a plan prior to
commencement of construction with sufficient investment to
continue to educate and inform the public.
As I indicated, I'd like to also see a program to help
offset--impact those businesses that are most severely
affected. We'd like to see something that would address those
businesses as well.
I'd like to call your attention to a survey that was
conducted of 550 businesses, area businesses here in the
Flathead Valley, of which 120 responded to. Sixty percent of
those businesses also prefer the fast-track reconstruction
option, with 20 percent favoring the accelerated
reconstruction, 6 percent for the status quo.
I'd like to conclude by saying that the Sun Road is a main
attraction to some of the most beautiful scenery in North
America, and it is disintegrating. There's no perfect time to
rebuild a stretch of road that presents some of the most
difficult conditions imaginable, but given the recent increase
in funding for the highway bill and the current budget surplus,
we should act now while the window of opportunity is still
available. We could choose to delay or study further or do
nothing at all, but if we do, we risk losing the road
altogether.
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much, Joe. Thank you for those
valuable comments, and I'll be looking forward to asking you
some more detailed questions about those.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Unterreiner may be found at
end of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. The next witness is Roger Running Crane, who is
vice-chairman of the Blackfeet Nation.
Mr. Running Crane, thank you for being here. We look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ROGER RUNNING CRANE, VICE-CHAIRMAN, BLACKFEET
NATION
Mr. Running Crane. Good morning. I bring you greetings from
the Blackfeet Nation and would like to first of all thank the
Honorable Rick Hill, who sits on the House Resources
Subcommittee on National Parks and Lands for scheduling this
hearing and allowing us to provide testimony for the record.
My name is Roger Running Crane, vice-chairman of the
Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, which is the governing body
of the Blackfeet Nation.
Historically, Glacier National Park was part of the
original land base of the Blackfeet people and later was
transferred to the hands of the U.S. Government through a
treaty in 1896. We still claim treaty rights in the Park that
include privileges to hunt, fish and gather wood.
Presently, our western boundary of the Blackfeet
Reservation is Glacier National Park. I point this out because
it documents our presence before and after the creation of the
Park that serves as a showcase for the entire world to enjoy
its natural beauty.
With that said, the Blackfeet Nation would simply like to
offer their human and natural resources in the proposed future
maintenance and repair of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. These
resources consist of a qualified work force, unlimited amounts
of and access to gravel and other road construction materials.
We have land adjacent to the Park for recreational and
campground use by the tourists who may wish to choose to visit
only the east side of Logan Pass when the Going-to-the-Sun Road
is under construction.
Finally, the Tribe also offers any other resources in
assisting the Park Service to make the construction phase an
experience that we can all benefit from.
In closing, Congressman Hill, the Tribe is sensitive to the
economic downside of the tourism industry if the road
construction is to occur. By not being viable participants in
that industry for reasons that I will not go into, we simply
want to maximize the economic opportunities for our people who
are at the lowest economic rungs of the ladder in this country.
Any economic stimulus for our people is welcomed, and I'm sure
the surrounding communities in the Blackfeet Country would
agree as well, since they, too, reap the benefits of those
dollars.
Again, thank you for this opportunity, and we reserve the
right to send additional documents for the record within a 10-
day time period after this hearing. Thank you.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Running Crane, and that is true.
The record will be held open for 10 days to make it an official
part of the record, and, obviously, if folks have other
comments, they can make those comments to our office, and we
will do everything we can to get them either in the record at
this hearing or a subsequent hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Running Crane may be found
at end of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. I apologize to people back there. Evidently, our
sound system has had some malfunction. Can you still hear back
there? Can you hear the testimony in the back? OK. We will
proceed, then, with Mr. Richard Hunt, vice-president of Friends
of Glacier.
Thank you, Mr. Hunt, for being here. We look forward to
your testimony.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, panel members and
interested persons. Thank you for this opportunity to appear
before you.
Mr. Hill. You need to turn that mike on. I don't think it's
on.
Just wait a moment. Let's see if we can get the volume----
[Discussion off the record.]
Mr. Hill. We're ready to go.
Mr. Hunt, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD B. HUNT, VICE-PRESIDENT, FRIENDS OF
GLACIER, INC.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you.
Friends of Glacier was formed with the purpose of assuring
access to Glacier National Park and opposing any plans to
diminish access during the publication of and hearings on the
draft Newsletters in 1997, which related to the General
Management Plan for Glacier National Park.
By 1924 Park officials had promoted a goal to enable people
to reach the interior of the Park even if they could not afford
the rates of the Great Northern Railroad and its chalets. In
1925 the Bureau of Public Roads began to oversee the building
of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which traversed Logan Pass and
connected the east and the west and gave the people the
opportunity to reach the interior of the Park. In 1933, Park
officials attained their goal as visitation increased by 44
percent with the completion of the road.
This 22 miles of the most difficult stretch of the proposed
road was completed with primitive equipment by today's
standards. In the Management Plan developed by Glacier Park
planners, the preferred alternative fast-track reconstruction
of the road plans on 4 to 6 years to complete utilizing the
most modern technology and equipment available, only eight
miles more than that done from 1925 to 1933. Alpine road
construction techniques of today should be able to do better.
However, that is only part of the story. Several other
shortcomings are presented in the GMP related to the Going-to-
the-Sun Road. Two critical issues were identified by the Park
planners related to the road: Visitor use on the Going-to-the-
Sun Road and preservation of the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
One, in the preferred alternative of the first issue,
several actions to be taken relate to an expanded
transportation system, modifying and/or adding pullouts, picnic
areas and short trails, although it is interesting to consider
adding picnic areas on the Going-to-be-the-Sun Road while
removing one at the developed area also on the Going-to-the-Sun
Road.
There is little in the plan which identifies the impact of
those actions on the newly completed reconstruction. In our
view, some linkage should be in the GMP.
Two, in the preferred alternative of the second issue,
several criteria were established to develop the preferred, to
minimize impacts on the visitors and minimize impacts on the
local economy. The GMP suggests that local business persons
would have time to develop the mitigation for the impact of
closing one side of the Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road for 2 to 3
years, then close the other side for 2 to 3 years. It is the
Park's criteria. Yet the GMP says little about how the Park
would assist in such a minimization plan. The GMP also says
little about measures to be taken to minimize the impact on the
visitor. These two areas of the General Management Plan are
deficient in our view.
One of the most disturbing deficiencies in the GMP is also
related to one other aspect of this oversight hearing,
maintenance. Little is said about the long-term need to
maintain the Going-to-the-Sun Road after it is reconstructed.
This GMP is to provide guidance to the Park for 20 or so years.
Yet preservation of the road also means maintenance, and
maintenance deserves a place in the General Management Plan.
Friends of Glacier recognizes and applauds plans to improve
access by adding pullouts, picnic areas, short trails and
emphasis upon a safe Going-to-the-Sun Road for visitors to
appreciate one of the premier experiences in the Park, which is
to traverse the road from east to west and west to east. We
also recognize and appreciate the Plan's efforts to preserve
the Park and to preserve this Park as a traditional western
park.
Friends of Glacier stands ready to participate in finding
solutions to some of the shortcomings we see in the GMP.
Directors and officers of Friends of Glacier attended the
meeting held in Kalispell by Representative Rick Hill in June
1998. Many ideas were presented, including the suggestion that
more time was needed to examine the data and to consider
forming an advisory group with alpine road construction
experts, local business persons and interested persons to
determine effective economical methods of construction,
timeframe and strategy with the least impact on local, regional
and international economies as well as other activities which
would mitigate the effects of this necessary and important
project.
Park planners tell us on page 50 of the Draft General
Management Plan, Environmental Impact Statement, that the
National Park Service prefers an alternative that conforms to a
certain set of criteria, and from available information,
Alternative A, the fast-track reconstruction, 4 to 6 years,
appears best to satisfy those criteria. However--and I quote--
``If new data and analyses revealed information that would
better respond to the criteria, a different alternative would
be selected in the final plan.'' Emphasis added. How would this
data and analyses be revealed to the Park planners?
In summary, Friends of Glacier continue to support the
broadest possible access to Glacier National Park. We ask that
our testimony will cause the Park planners and this Committee
to seek ways to improve the connection between the two critical
issues discussed, visitor use on Going-on-the-Sun Road and
preservation of Going-to-the-Sun Road.
We are not suggesting specific actions at this time. As
indicated, Friends of Glacier stands ready to be a part of any
method for arriving at solutions to those shortcomings we have
identified.
Thank you, Chairman Hill, for the opportunity to present
our views and our questions.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Hunt, for that valuable input, and
I look forward to fleshing some of that out.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunt may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Our last panelist will be, last but not least,
Mr. Will Brooke, who is owner of the St. Mary's KOA Campground.
Thank you for appearing, Mr. Brooke. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF WILL BROOKE, PRESIDENT, GLACIER/WATERTON VISITOR
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Brooke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can't tell you how
nice it is to call you Mr. Chairman and Mr. Congressman after
all these years. I wish Mr. Hanson were here so we could recall
the days when it wasn't Mr. Chairman but Member of the
Minority. It's nice to see you as Member of the Majority now.
First, I want to correct. It's St. Mary. It's not St.
Mary's. Second, I want to correct. I appear here today as
president of the Glacier/Waterton Visitor Association. We are a
collection of businesses throughout the Park and around the
Park, including Canada, and some of our Members have been
providing service to the visitors of Glacier for over 65 years
and know and understand the issues around the Park as well as
anybody in the country.
I speak of Roscoe Black and his family at St. Mary, Lisa
Lundgren and her family at West Glacier. These people
understand these issues very well and need to be listened to
carefully. They have the historical memory, if you will, that
some of us don't have the benefit of.
The Association wants to be clear that in the first
instance we commend the Park Service for what they're doing in
terms of focusing attention on the maintenance, improvement and
protection of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It is a critical
issue, and I would agree with Mr. Mihalic today that the
easiest thing for him to do and for the Park Service to do
would have been to let somebody else deal with this. That
certainly has been the case previously, and I think that the
Park Service is the victim of deferred maintenance by prior
administrations, lack of attention by the public to what was
building up as a result of the deferred maintenance, and
Congress has had its finger in this problem by removing
funding, critical funding for some of the maintenance.
But notwithstanding these problems, I think that the Park
Service and what they're proposing in the General Management
Plan specific to the Going-to-the-Sun Road is premature at this
time. It is at a minimum based on improper procedure and public
involvement, and at a maximum it may be just plain wrong.
We hope the Park Service is not wrong. In fact, if the Park
Service is ultimately correct in its proposed action, we will
get behind the Park Service and help in every way possible by
assisting and obtaining necessary funding from Congress,
working with public relations and information to mitigate the
perception that the Park is closed and, otherwise, working with
the Park Service. However, whether the Park Service is correct
is the key issue as we sit here today.
And, Mr. Congressman Hill, you put your finger on it, as
you have the ability to so often do. There's a chicken and egg
here, a cart before the horse question. The Federal Highways is
saying, Well, we're not going to do the detailed engineering
until the Park Service chooses their preferred alternative. How
in the world can you choose a preferred alternative without
detailed engineering studies? It doesn't make sense, and it's
inappropriate to proceed that way.
The EIS for the General Management Plan has been proceeding
through the NEPA process for several years now. The section for
the Going-to-the-Sun in the Draft Management Plan is new. It
wasn't in the former Management Plan. It came out, and it
proposes a major significant new Federal action with enormous
impacts to the environment and the economy.
You've heard about those impacts, the economic impact from
the other witnesses, and I'm not going to continue those, but
you asked the question or you pointed out that you had several
concerns about how they did the economic studies. Well, I'll
point out just one point. In the plan it talks about 2,400 jobs
may be affected or are affected by the Park. Our membership can
account for 2,000 jobs just through our members, so we know
that 2,400 jobs is entirely inappropriate and a wrong number
and a bad number. How they came up with it I don't know, but it
points up bigger and larger problems, that they're using
information that is, I guess, not entirely well researched or
thought out.
More importantly, going back to what I was saying, we're
proposing a major Federal action in the General Management
Plan. The last-minute inclusion in the plan of a major new
Federal action does not comply with the letter or the spirit of
NEPA and the EIS process. It has not been properly scoped, we
believe, and the information and studies and data supporting
the action are nothing more than generalities, and there's a
general failure to consider all of the appropriate
alternatives.
The General Management Plan is a general guide of how the
Federal land should be managed, usually for a period of about
10 years. The proposal for the Sun Road is not consistent with
this principle. Rather, it is site specific, date specific and
project specific. We believe the decision to do anything with
the road of this magnitude necessarily requires and commands a
separate plan and a separate Environmental Impact Statement.
There are alternatives that are not in this plan which we
believe should have at least been considered or explained why
they were not considered. The Federal Highway Administration
analyzed at least one other alternative, from what we can tell
from the information we've gathered, and it appears that there
might be some merit to that alternative, but the Park Service
didn't include it in the EIS, nor did they explain why the
alternative was not considered, and I think it points up a
larger point with this plan.
To use a old, worn-out cliche, when you look at the EIS,
you ask the question, Where is the beef?
You compared it to looking at impacts on threatened and
endangered species, so you can bet, if we were doing a timber
sale or if we were doing some other kind of major Federal
action that effected threatened and endangered species, we
would have an enormous Environmental Impact Statement with
studies that attached to it that went on forever, and
appropriately so, but when we talk about economic impacts, we
choose to do generalities. We choose to rely upon studies that
are questionable at best, and I'll point that out, and I see
the time is up, and I'll get out.
The survey that they relied upon, as you pointed out, is
questionable, and one of things they did was, they surveyed
people that had been to the Park.
The tourism business is extremely competitive, and there
are states and countries spending hundreds of thousands of
dollars advertising. Come to our state. Come to our area. They
asked people who had went over the road, Would you come back
under various scenarios? The appropriate way to do that kind of
survey is to go back to somebody in Minnesota, somebody in
Texas, somebody in Michigan, who has maybe requested
information from the Montana Tourism Bureau, and ask them, you
know, If the road is closed or partially closed, would you
still come? I think you're going to get a much different
answer. They're sampling the wrong population.
They also continuously point out that 80 percent said they
would come back. If you read that survey, when you talk about
closure, you talk about 60 percent coming back, and,
unfortunately, when you talk about closure of any kind, people
have the perception of closure.
The last thing I want to say is that, we're talking about
possibly starting in the year 2004. A lot of us are making
long-term financial commitments to capital improvements to
build our businesses and to make improvements that result in
lots of jobs and lots of money invested in the local economy.
We cannot go to our financial institutions and say, Look, We've
got a possibility of road closure in the year 2004. This thing
has to be laid out with longer term commitments so that we can
go back and get long-term financing to do the kind of capital
improvements that we want to do, and we have to have it far
enough out in front of us that we can make the appropriate kind
of planning. This doesn't do it.
The association requests that the EIS or that section on
the road be pulled out and a separate EIS done. We think that's
appropriate, given the magnitude of this kind of decision.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Brooke.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brooke may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Hill. I have quite a few questions, and let me start
with Mayor Hall.
What are the people in Columbia Falls saying when you talk
to them about this reconstruction effort? What do you hear
them--What are they saying to you?
Mr. Hall. Through the tears, they are saying that there's
no possible way they would be able to recover from the loss
that would be incurred by this Alternative A.
We are marginal at best anyway. We are probably the closest
large population community close to the Park, and the business
is two and a half to 3 months strong, and the impact that it
would have on these small businesses would be too much to
recover from at the end of this reconstruction process. That's
the main theme.
Mr. Hill. One of the troubling things, in reading the
Management Plan with reference to this, is the sense that, you
have the time from now to the year 2004 to prepare your
business for the economic impact. How does a businessman----
And I'd ask anyone else who wants to answer this question.
As a former business owner, how do you prepare your business
for being out of business for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 years? Do
you know any way that a business can prepare for that kind of
an event?
Mr. Hall. It's a good question, and I don't have an answer
for it because I don't think there is one. There really isn't
an answer to that.
Mr. Hill. You can't prepare?
Mr. Hall. You can't.
Mr. Hill. Joe, do you want to comment on that? I mean,
you've testified that you think that--I hate this word ``Fast
track'' by the way. I'd just comment that fast track also
refers to trade authority that's a matter of some controversy.
I was answering the telephones in my office as people were
calling in on another issue, and one evening a lady called in.
It was kind of a feeble voice, and she said, Tell the
Congressman that he should oppose fast track. The trains are
already going too fast. When you talk about fast track, some
people may think the train is going too fast here.
Anyway, Joe, go ahead.
Mr. Unterreiner. I guess I see those kinds of arguments as
the reason why there needs to be some kind of program for
financial relief offered to the people that are most severely
affected, and I don't--It doesn't get any easier by drawing it
out longer, so I see that partially as an argument for getting
it over as quickly as possible and, hopefully, providing some
kind of relief in the same way that people who are devastated
by an earthquake in San Francisco or Los Angeles or a hurricane
in Florida or people who are provided air conditioners in Texas
by the Federal Government are benefited. There must be some way
to provide some kind of relief for those businesses that are
most severely effected.
Mr. Hill. What you see happening or what you anticipate
happening is some effort on the part of Congress for what, some
sort of a loan program or grant program? What is it you
contemplate there?
Mr. Unterreiner. I guess that is why I'd like to see some
kind of an effort made to see if there is a precedent for
either National Park Service roads or for any of the Federal
Highway Administration roads. For example, whether there is a
precedent out there that exists currently and if there is not,
I guess I would envision something along the lines of something
through the Small Business Administration or certainly with the
CRP program for--In ag they take a look at a business and see
how much income is generated off of a certain acreage of land.
There is a general precedent. Whether there exists a
precedent for Federal Highway Administration roads, I don't
know, but I think that that's something that should be
explored.
Mr. Hill. Do you think there's a way for us to be able to
accomplish this task without having a dramatic impact on the
businesses?
Mr. Unterreiner. Well, I think that there are ways to help
minimize the impact, and I see one of the major things there is
providing for funding for public education, and I would like to
see that be part of the appropriation request, that there be
some substantial kinds of public education dollars and a fully
developed program put together prior to the beginning of
construction actually to accompany the appropriation request,
and I think that that could go a long way to helping offset
visitor losses.
Mr. Hill. There's a general perception, I think, or at
least I think most of us have the perception, that the people
believe that when the road is closed the Park is closed, and if
you can't go on the road completely, then there's no sense in
visiting the Park. Is that what you're talking about is some
education effort as part of this to convince people that it's
still a worthy experience to come to the Park even if there is
some road closure associated with it?
Mr. Unterreiner. Yes, and I would see it even broader than
that, to include other kinds of activities in the gateway
communities.
The University of Montana study indicated that 75--between
75 and 80 percent of the total impact that would be felt by the
reconstruction options would be felt locally, that is, in the
gateway communities, and that includes Glacier County. So I
would like to see funding in place and a fully developed kind
of public education or marketing program that outlined other
kinds of activities that would--that could occur, other kinds
of vacation stops that could occur in all of the gateway
communities in the Glacier area.
Mr. Hill. Are the local chambers of commerce prepared to
put some resources to that effort as well?
Mr. Unterreiner. Absolutely. All of our meager resources
might be available.
Mr. Hill. Any others that would care to comment on these
series of questions that I have?
Mr. Brooke. As to your question about, How do businesses
plan to be closed? I think, you know, it goes back to the
original question, Have we explored all the alternatives, and
is that really the only option here? It might be. If it is, I
can tell you that this business person makes decisions further
out than 4 years.
And the other thing that we rely upon when we make the
decisions is good information. Right now the Park Service, in
its plan, is talking about a 4- to 6-year closure, 2 to 3 on
each side. The Federal Highway talks about the need to know--
They have a detailed list of essential requirements that
agencies must adhere to to meet the estimated time lines and
costs for these alternatives.
One of those is the threatened and endangered species
effect, and the Park Service hasn't dealt with that issue.
The bottom line is, Is 2 to 3 years on each side realistic
when you're talking about these essential requirements and
having to meet those that might affect your time line? So, you
know, when you go into looking at the possibility of having to
pull up the bootstraps, you've got to know what you're looking
at.
You can't say, Well, it might be 2 years, and it might be 6
years. You can't say, It might be 80 million, and it might be
210 million. That doesn't make sense, and I think it points out
that the Park Service has got to get better information. They
have to have more focus, and they need to do some of the things
like you're talking about, engineering studies before they
select the alternative, not after.
Mr. Hill. And is your association ready to work with the
Park Service in addressing the issues you just raised?
Mr. Brooke. Absolutely. In fact, we wanted to get involved
in helping to produce another alternative, and we had discussed
about the notion of approaching Congress for funding to do some
engineering studies, because we can't come up with the kind of
funding to do that. The Park Service didn't think that was
appropriate because they thought it a violation of the Federal
Advisory Committee Act.
I disagree with that. I think that we could help come up
with another alternative. At a minimum we can be involved in
some kind of advisory panel on this issue.
Mr. Hill. I want to ask all the panel members to respond to
this question. You've raised the suggestion, Will, that we
should have a separate EIS for the Road than the Management
Plan. Is there some middle ground here?
One of the arguments against that is that we'll have two
full-blown EIS's substantially addressing some overlapping
issues, because the General Management Plan for the Park has to
have included a contemplation of what's going to happen to the
Road. I don't think you can implement the General Management
Plan without some conclusion that the Road is going to be
reconstructed or not.
The other aspect of that is this, is that--I mean, I agree
that we ought to consider the issues associated with the Road
operated separate from the rest of the Management Plan, but I
don't know that the right conclusion is a separate EIS. One of
the arguments against that, frankly, is that, if you have a
separate EIS on the Road, then it puts us back to base one
again on the conclusions that Mr. Hunt has raised in his
testimony, and that is, Should we even rebuild the Road at all,
or should we replace it with some sort of mass transit?
I would ask you, No. 1, is there some middle ground? I'd
ask each of you to address that question, whether or not you
think there should be a separate full EIS, or do you think that
the decision with regard to proceeding with the Road could be
handled under a single EIS but managed separately. Would each
of you respond to that?
Mr. Brooke. I think it could be done that way, and you're
right. It probably, in the long-term, makes more sense. I guess
the way we came about our decision was, we saw there was this
desire to get moving with the General Management Plan, but they
came up with this major new section that proposes a major new
Federal action----
Mr. Hill. Right.
Mr. Brooke. [continuing] during the process.
Mr. Hill. I mean, it has to be addressed in the EIS. We all
know that.
Mr. Brooke. Right. We figured, you know, let the General
Management Plan proceed forward. We'll pull this issue out,
look at it separately. I tend to think they are intertwined,
but based on the information and data they now have in the EIS,
it's woefully inadequate to make any kind of even comment on
that part of the plan.
Mr. Hill. But that's the specifics of the alternative?
Mr. Brooke. Right.
Mr. Hill. Do you agree that we need to reconstruct the Road
and maintain the Road?
Mr. Brooke. Absolutely.
Mr. Hill. OK. I'd like each of you to respond to that
series of questions. I don't remember what they were. You do.
Mr. Hunt. Do we remember? Oh, yeah. Right.
I can't advocate on behalf of Friends of Glacier that the
Park should complete a new EIS on the Going-on-the-Sun Road. I
don't think that would be appropriate because we do not have
that kind of information from our 700 mailing list yet that
that would be appropriate, but as officers and directors, we
have discussed the issue, and we do not have agreement that it
should be pulled from the plan or left in.
Personally, I believe that it would be beneficial to remove
at least some aspects of it from the plan because I do believe
that, as they study the reconstruction aspect of the Road, they
also must study what those additives to the Road would mean in
terms of the impact, that is, the pullouts, the short trails,
the picnic areas, the scenic oversights, overviews and so
forth, and I think all of that needs to be put together before
they say, This is how we're going to do the Road.
Mr. Hill. I guess the point here being is that, is it
possible in your mind that, in the Management Plan--I don't
want to get into a lot of detail about the Management Plan, but
you're right. Those are important elements of the General
Management Plan that are also specific to the Road. The
conclusion could be drawn in the Management Plan and the EIS
for the Management Plan that we're going to reconstruct the
Road and that the reconstructed Road would have those features
but that we have a parallel track with regard to how we go
about accomplishing the reconstruction of the Road without
necessarily requiring a separate full EIS.
Whether they build it short-term or long-term, they're
still going to have to find out where they locate gravel pits
and where they're going to try to locate hot plants and how
they're going to accomplish the staging, the scheduling of the
work and how it's going to impact endangered species. That's
all going to have to be considered, but it would be nice to get
the conclusion behind us that the right decision is to rebuild
the Road and to rebuild the Road with the features you just
described. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Hunt. Yes, I would agree with that, and I think that
our members would agree with that too, that they can adopt the
plan in terms--with those conditions within the plan and by
fleshing out aspects of the plan which would show how they're
going to take care of all of those issues, and among the
endangered species that might be there are those local business
people, not just in this country, but in Canada we have heard
reports from the members of the Waterton/Glacier Visitors'
Association in Canada what kind of an impact it would have. If
the people don't come to Glacier, how many of them are not
going to come to Waterton?
We have to remember, this is the Waterton/Glacier
International Peace Park, so it's not two things. It's one
thing.
How many people would go to Calgary, for instance? I was
surprised to hear the numbers of people that come to Glacier
and then say, Oh, let's go to Calgary too.
So, yes, I would agree that it could be accomplished within
the framework of the adoption of a plan, but specifically
indicating you're going to add those elements to it.
Mr. Hill. Before you pass the microphone, I would just ask
your group too. Does your group stand ready to participate with
Glacier National Park officials to try to help advise in trying
to reach the right conclusion here?
Mr. Hunt. Our group is ready, as I've indicated, to stand--
to help. We have offered help in the past, and we're willing to
offer help in the future. Since our primary purpose and our
goals are re-
lated to access, we feel probably that's the best place for us
to be used.
Mr. Hill. And how many members do you have in your group?
Mr. Hunt. Well, we have 700 people who have been responding
to questionnaires, and we indicated to them if they responded
that constituted a membership. There are no dues to belong to
the Friends of Glacier.
Mr. Hill. And you stand ready to join with others to help
educate the public that the Park--we still have a Park even
though----
Mr. Hunt. Absolutely. Yeah.
Mr. Hill. Thank you. Mr. Meznarich, would you care to
comment?
Mr. Meznarich. Yes. Thank you. I'll pick up right where
Richard left off.
Glacier County, the local development office of Glacier
County, the local chamber of commerce all would stand ready to
assist in that process.
As my testimony stated, we very much need to promote that,
simply because the Sun Road is closed, portions are closed,
does not mean the Park is off limits, and I think
reconstruction is definitely required. We have some serious
problems there. No, I do not think we need a separate EIS. I
believe separate management of those issues is appropriate.
Your earlier question about how a business prepares to be
closed I think is addressed by the options, and on the east
side we have the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial option. That's
something that's very significant. Perhaps the west side is not
aware of the significance of that prospect.
We have a member, a resident of Glacier County, who is on
the Governor's Bicentennial Committee, and he reported to us
that the United States will spend more money on the Lewis and
Clark Bicentennial than they spent on the United States
Bicentennial.
Those are big dollars, and we're looking forward to having
that type of an impact, and we're seeing that already six or so
years prior to the Bicentennial, seeing a great deal more
interest in those sites, which are in very close proximity to
Cut Bank.
Mr. Hill. As you may or may not know, I have formed a Lewis
and Clark caucus at the House of Representatives for the
purpose of trying to raise the profile of the Lewis and Clark
Bicentennial. I would just caution you about the expectation
that Congress is going to authorize more money for this than
they did for the nation's Bicentennial, however. I don't know
that there's anywhere near that kind of consensus.
We did, of course, move forward with the coin and some
other things, but we do want to focus the resources of the
Federal Government on making sure that the recognition of that
Bicentennial is there.
Let me ask you this question, though. Presuming--we don't
know the answer to this question, but if you found that your
proposed plan had negative impacts on the west side, in other
words, it may benefit your community, but it worked to the
disadvantage of the people on the other side, would you still
strongly advocate it?
Mr. Meznarich. Glacier County has a long history of
supporting things that are generally beneficial for the Park,
and the economic statistics will stand to prove that, that the
east side is significantly less impacted than the west side.
The fact that there are communities the size of Kalispell,
Columbia Falls, with Mayor Hall here being a border community
to Glacier, is a significant part of that.
We don't have that in Glacier County. We have small
spatterings, East Glacier, St. Mary, Browning and then Cut
Bank, the furthest away from there. Our population base is
significantly less. The Blackfeet Reservation plays a part in
that, and perhaps Mr. Running Crane could address that too.
We don't see the economic impact that the west side does.
Yet we still fully support that knowing that there might be
some trickle, we would expect, to benefit Glacier County.
My proposal to add maintenance to the Looking Glass Road
would significantly improve opportunities for the west side,
because those visitors would have a shorter distance to travel
to get around the lower boundary down to Highway 2 and over to
the west side during portions of the closure.
Mr. Hill. Whose responsibility is the Looking Glass Road at
this point?
Mr. Meznarich. No one has taken responsibility for that
road. The National Park Service has, basically, abandoned it,
then asked, about 2 years ago, for the County and the State and
the Tribe and various other agencies to step in there and take
a look at it.
Mr. Hill. There is no legal responsibility for that road?
Mr. Meznarich. The research has not indicated any ownership
obligation.
Mr. Hill. We have that problem on the Beartooth Highway
too.
Has anybody done any engineering analysis, any analysis of
what it would take to address that road in terms of cost of
reconstruction or significant maintenance?
Mr. Meznarich. Significant maintenance has been addressed.
I couldn't speak specifically about those dollar amounts.
Mr. Hill. Could you provide that for me for the record,
whatever you have?
Mr. Meznarich. Yes, we could.
Mr. Hill. Could you also take the responsibility to
determine if the State or the Tribe have done any evaluations
of that and provide whatever is available in the record and try
to get it to us?
Mr. Meznarich. We will provide whatever is available.
Mr. Hill. Thank you.
[The information referred to may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall. One of your questions was about financial support
in the advertising aspect and the promotion of things--the
money loss by the 20-percent decrease to the fund, the bed tax
fund is going to be significantly lower, and it would be hard-
pressed to come up with finances to help support that.
One of the reasons, even in my statement that I suggested
another EIS be done is--It was based kind of on a fear of the
lack of comprehensive planning in the GMP, and it was a fear
that maybe that is one issue that wasn't covered. I'm learning
as we're going here. I'm not in favor of a new EIS. It could
have a significant hindrance to the project going forward.
Mr. Hill. But would you agree that maybe there's a middle
ground here----
Mr. Hall. Yes.
Mr. Hill. [continuing] the idea of working with one EIS,
but trying to have two track here?
Mr. Hall. Absolutely. Actually, that's the only way I think
it will work successfully. You know, it should be pulled from
the GMP partially also because it would give opportunity for
your suggestion of other engineers having an opportunity to
look at this project and offer input.
As I stated in my testimony, at your June meeting there was
someone there, I believe, from the Federal Department of
Transportation stating that there is ways to build a wall on
the Valley floor and transport it to the site.
So there is alternatives we have not heard anything about,
so it causes grave concern. We want to hear more. We know there
is other alternatives.
Mr. Unterreiner. I think Ms. Jacoby had pointed out that
really what we have is some concepts about how the road can be
done. The alternatives haven't been fully engineered, and so I
think, at this point, they are concepts, and there's a lot more
work that needs to be done. I kind of view what we have as a
beginning to refine the alternatives, but probably not as they
exist kind of final in their current form.
However, maybe I'm more optimistic than some of the other
panelists that the concerns that have been expressed here can
be worked out within the existing document and that there is
really nothing to be gained by rehashing it all and another
couple hundred thousand dollar Environmental Impact Statement
and----
Mr. Hill. Couple hundred thousand?
Mr. Unterreiner. Yeah. Or more.
Mr. Hill. A lot more.
Mr. Unterreiner. And more time spent on that. I'd like to
see us work within the existing document.
Mr. Hill. I'd just make the comment that the preliminary
estimate of the cost of doing the Environmental Impact
Statement on the Beartooth Highway, which has some issues
similar to this, a 30-mile, I think, stretch of highway,
alpine--I mean, you're all familiar with that--is about $6
million, just a frightening sum of money, but I'd just point
out that two EIS's could add dramatically to the cost.
Mr. Running Crane, would you care to comment on any of
that?
Mr. Running Crane. Yes. Being a newly elected council here,
we have not discussed a separate EIS for the road construction
at this point in time, but we did have concerns of the
alternative route, and that would be the Looking Glass Road
that was discussed here earlier, and, you know, we'd come to
the conclusion, Who has benefited the most from the Looking
Glass Road? Nobody wants to claim ownership of the road at this
point in time, but there is studies of the maintenance of the
road, and I guess----
Mr. Hill. Would you provide that for the Committee?
Mr. Running Crane. I sure will. I will provide the study
for you on that part there.
[The information referred to may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Hill. Excuse me. Is it the Tribe's view that Congress
should address that issue in terms of--in the context of the
overall Management Plan of the Park or in the context of the
Going-to-the-Sun Highway?
Mr. Running Crane. I would say--In my own personal view, I
should say, yes, the Congress should address this, but that is
one of the things that is one of our biggest concerns right now
is the Looking Glass Road, you know, as an alternative route,
when the closure of the Going-to-the-Sun Road is being
constructed here, but that is a good, viable road there if we
can ever get that to operational again and the safety of the
road at this point in time.
Mr. Hill. Again, I'm going to--If you'd keep the microphone
there, I'm going to ask all of you to answer this question,
too, and then, after this question, I think we'll probably
break, and I'll give you each an opportunity if you want to add
anything to the record.
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied and what
specific recommendation do you have with respect to that with
the opportunity you've been given to participate in this
process today, by that I mean, the structure by which you've
been allowed to provide advice to the Park Service? Again, I
want to restrict the comments to the Road, not to the overall
Management Plan, but are you generally satisfied? Do you think
that we should try to create some sort of a mechanism or
formalized mechanism for your participation in this process?
That's what I'm looking for.
Mr. Running Crane. As a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and
the council here, we were pretty much, I guess, looking at the
economic portion of the construction. Therefore, it would allow
us as the Blackfeet people to look at opportunities to where we
could provide services to the Park in there on not only the
tourism, but also the construction portion of the road, and I
think that by being here today it gives us that opportunity to
let you people know what we can provide as a council, as a
Tribe, and as a people of the Blackfeet Nation to where we
could benefit economically in there, and by working together
with the Park Service, I think that we could do a lot of good
things that would help the tourism and, I guess, would help the
people in the construction here.
We look forward to working with the Tribe--I mean, with the
Park Service in the things that they are doing here, and, you
know, it gives us a good opportunity to express our views here
as well. Thank you.
Mr. Hill. You bet. Thank you for being here. Thank you for
your valuable input.
Mr. Unterreiner. We feel like we've had ample opportunity
to provide input in the past. I think, going forward, we'd like
to--Particularly on the public education kind of marketing, we
would like to have some input in that process, particularly in
the formation of that plan and how that comes together and what
are the alternatives that are presented to visitors. That's one
thing we'd like to have input on.
Additionally, going forward, in the area there seems to be
kind of a growing consensus, at least among the businesses that
have responded to us, that the best way to go is to do it in
the way that has the least impact. Right now that's pointing
toward this fast-track alternative.
I think that, in order to even increase the numbers that
are there on a final selected alternative, there's going to
have to be a lot of communication on the engineering side.
Whether that's two separate kind of advisory committees or
whether that's something more informal, I don't know.
From my point of view, going forward, on the marketing side
and on more details on the engineering side and how that
decision that's ultimately arrived at is--how that decision is
made, I think it will be important for the business community
to be kept informed about how that's happening, and if that's
done, I think that there will be a broad consensus over what
that alternative is.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for your input as well.
Mr. Hall. I felt today has been very constructive, even for
my own information gathering, and I'm most appreciative of it.
I'm still not convinced that Alternative A is the best action.
The people at this table here could and probably should be on a
citizens' advisory board.
In the last issue of FCV News magazine, it came out and
stated that the Federal Highway Administration is mandated to
involve the public through a citizens' advisory council.
However, we understand that the National Park Service does not
favor the formation of a council. I'm hoping that after today
that maybe something could be done in that effort.
Mr. Hill. Thank you.
Mr. Meznarich.
Mr. Meznarich. I think that's an excellent idea as well, a
citizens' advisory council. I know I would certainly welcome
the opportunity to sit on that. I've been generally satisfied
with the opportunity to present information with regard to the
highway. It's nice to see a balance here, east side, west side,
on this panel, and another example of the east side supporting
the west side in this to the benefit of the overall program is
the fact that this meeting is on the west side, not on the east
side. Nonetheless, we're glad you're here.
Mr. Hill. Well, we only were allowed to schedule one
location, and so this was it.
Mr. Hunt. Yes. Thank you.
As a representative of Friends of Glacier, I was invited to
participate in the focus meeting on Going-to-the-Sun Road
earlier, long before the plan was developed, and I was pleased
with the opportunity to present my thoughts and the thoughts
that emerged from our group.
I did not get the feeling in that group, though, that we
were talking primarily about the reconstruction aspects of the
road, but we were talking about how those reconstruction
aspects affected the use, which is the critical issue that I
believe should be tied more closely to the reconstruction part
of it.
So, yes. I'm satisfied that we've had an opportunity to be
involved. I do believe, along with other panel members here
today, that a citizens' advisory group would be most useful,
and there could be many aspects of that going all the way from
those who have engineering and alpine road construction
expertise as well as those who might be involved in fostering
aspects such as the better use of the Looking Glass or Highway
49, which is one of my favorite views of all of--of looking at
the Park is to come back through that way, so that we are not,
I don't believe, emphasizing the other aspects of the Park as
much as we should in viewing any possibility of closures.
I believe the Park's plan should include elements that talk
about all of the--all of the roads that are within the Park's
boundaries, and that includes the Inside North Fork Road, so
that it is accessible. There should be--In this educational
program that's been talked about today, there should be an
opportunity somehow to get the information to the visitor to
where these other sites are, where they can go to enjoy and
experience this wonder of nature. I think that that's where an
advisory group would be most helpful.
Now, I know that this is a hearing primarily related to
Going-to-the-Sun Road, but I do believe that one of the other
critical issues which has been identified, which is the
development of the discovery center on the west side, would be
an important adjunct to helping bring about this information,
this educational program to the Park, use by the visitor in the
event that there were any such thing as, the hated word,
``Closure'' of parts of the Park from one side to the other,
and if that were in place before the road construction began,
it would be the perfect opportunity to provide the kind of
information that would be needed for visitors to really enjoy
the Park in all of its other aspects and to enjoy the
relationships that the Park has had with the Blackfeet Tribe,
with Great Northern Railroad, with the great historic hotels
that are so important to the Park's character and culture.
So while I know we're not supposed to talk about all those
other things, I don't think we can talk about one thing without
thinking about all of the things. So there's a certain gestalt
to this plan which needs to be considered, and I believe that a
discovery center on the west side would be a very valuable help
in making the reconstruction a more painless process than it is
going to be otherwise.
Mr. Hill. That's good input. Thank you. Good idea.
Mr. Brooke. Well, to beat a dead horse, I'm going to beat
it some more. Your question was, is there adequate opportunity
for public involvement?
On the surface, yes, there's plenty of public meetings,
public hearings, those kinds of things, but public involvement
necessarily requires that you have all the information in front
of you, and that's not there in the EIS. You know, it might be,
as you say, more efficient and smarter to do some kind of two-
tiered tracking, which I agree with, but we get back to the
same question of the chicken and the egg.
I mean, what is the Park Service going to do? We've got
this timeframe. You know, public comment closes by the end of
November. The Park Service wants to make a decision in January.
There's no way you're going to get any kind of intelligent
information and new data in terms of outside engineering
between now and then. So you've got to modify a time line
somewhere along the way here if you keep these tracking
together.
Mr. Hill. Obviously, you could--I guess we could talk some
more about that later, but the question is--and I'd ask all the
panel members--is there anybody on the panel who disagrees with
the anticipated outcome that's in the General Management Plan
with regard to the Road, that is, that the Road will be
reconstructed and will have the features that we talked about?
Now, how we get there is another matter, but is there--Do you
disagree with that as a goal?
Mr. Brooke. No. I don't disagree with the way you say it,
and if the plan said that, I probably wouldn't be here today,
but the plan doesn't say that.
Mr. Hill. I mean, the plan could say that.
Mr. Brooke. It could say that. That's right.
Mr. Hill. You don't have to choose from the alternatives
that are in the plan now. The Park Service could develop
another alternative.
Mr. Brooke. Right. A general alternative.
Mr. Hill. A general alternative with regard to this and
complete the EIS and then work on parallel how we're going to
get there.
Mr. Brooke. Exactly.
Mr. Hill. The disagreement seems to be how we're going to
get there as opposed to where we want to get.
Mr. Brooke. It's to choose an alternative, from our
standpoint, that may or may not be the right one, and we want
to know that when we choose the alternative, whatever that is,
it's the best guess as everybody can guess as the right one. We
don't know that.
Mr. Hill. Sure. I think we all agree with that. What you're
saying, I think, is that we don't have the kind of detail that
you think we ought to have and, I think, most people here
believe to be able to draw a conclusion necessarily about what
the right track is. There might be a third or fourth or fifth
track. We don't know that.
I think the superintendent commented earlier--and I was
reassured by that--that he's open to other alternatives.
Mr. Brooke. And I was encouraged by that too, but if you're
going to say, We're open to other alternatives. What are they?
You know, we don't have the resources to do that. We don't have
the expertise. Federal Highways and those kinds of folks do,
and the burden really has to shift back, and they've got to go
back and do more homework, in our opinion.
Mr. Hill. It seems to me maybe Congress needs to give some
direction with respect to that.
Mr. Brooke. We would welcome that.
Mr. Hill. Thank you all for very valuable input. I've
learned a lot from this panel. I appreciate your all being
here.
What we're going to do is take about a 15-minute break.
During this 15-minute break, those who are here and members of
the public that want to make public comment about that, I would
ask that you sign up here with Nancy. Only if you sign up will
you be permitted to make public comment.
Again, what I'd like to do is try to get you to confine
your comments to 2 minutes in a much better fashion than our
panelists did confining their comments to five, but if you
could, because, obviously, there could be a large number of
people that want to make public comment.
What we'll do from this panel is, we're going to ask the
superintendent and Ms. Jacoby to come back, and we'll go
through some more comment and questions with them, and then
we'll open it up for public comment.
With that, we'll take about a 15-minute break.
Thank you very much. It was very informative.
[Brief recess.]
Mr. Hill. If we could ask everyone to take their seats and
if I can ask--We need to get our placards up here again. If I
could ask our panelists to rejoin us.
I'll remind our panelists we're still under oath, and I
thank all of you for staying with us.
I would just--Dave and Carol, I'd just ask you if you have
any comments that you want to make in response to the comments
that our second panelists had about where we're going here, in
whichever order you prefer.
Ms. Jacoby. I guess I just have a general comment to offer
about where we are in the engineering that's been done to date.
I made the statement earlier that we worked on the concepts
of what would be--Let me back up. We've identified where the
needs are on the road as far as the walls, the structural
condition of the walls and roadway drainage, things like that.
They've been based on visual inventories, but they're pretty
detailed and pretty comprehensive for what's out there.
Then we've looked at what concepts are available being used
in the industry that could be used in that location to enact
the repairs, and the source for that information was the DOT's,
not private industry, per se, but it's still a reflection of
what's going on.
We also, as the Federal Highway Administration, and
specifically Federal Lands, have got extensive experience in
the alpine area, at least within the continental U.S., because
of where we work. We work in national forests. We work in
national parks, and they are the Mt. Rainiers. They are the
Beartooth Highways. They are the Glaciers. So that's where we
are.
A lot of the time lines and the cost estimates that have
been put in there are based on working in the alpine section.
They are based on--Or the overriding factor in the scheduling
and the time required is the staging that will be implemented.
We have anywhere between an 18-foot and a 22-foot template to
operate construction equipment, and if it's selected to
maintain public traffic, that's not a lot of working room.
So we can do more detailed study. We can include private
industry to more extent to discuss these things as we move
forward, but I still see that an overriding input in anybody's
being able to evaluate what can be done is, we need to know the
answer to the question, Are we maintaining public traffic, and
in what fashion are we doing that?
Mr. Hill. You can understand, though, the issue----
Ms. Jacoby. Right.
Mr. Hill. [continuing] that's been raised by the people
that are going to be directly impacted here, and that is the
cart and the horse issue again.
Ms. Jacoby. It is a cart and a horse, and I would say that
the Federal Highway and the Park Service are committed to
minimiz-
ing the time that's up there because it's just in everybody's
best interest to get in and get out of there as fast as we can.
The Federal Highway does use a lot of innovative
construction mechanisms, whether it's design build, whether
it's lane rental, whatever it is. We make time be a factor
rather than just price. We're doing a lot of stuff in the
innovative contracting, but, again, that doesn't help you today
decide what to do. It's stuff that we can implement as we go
into it.
Mr. Hill. But I think there's a general perception--You
know, I spent my career, interestingly, before doing this, in
the business of bonding construction companies, and I don't
pretend to have any kind of expertise associated with, you
know, the complex engineering issues here, but I do have
considerable experience with what worked and didn't work in the
administration of contracts and have found that sometimes I
think you can get more done by--with what you refer to as
innovative contracting, where you make clear to the
construction company, who is actively engaged in making
decisions with regard to design matters, the results you want
to have.
Obviously, one of those results is what the road is going
to look like when it's done, but a significant part of that can
be, How do you get there? How do you manage traffic? How soon
do you have to get it done? And those kinds of things. But,
again, that involves probably making some assumptions early on
about how you're going to engineer it.
Ms. Jacoby. Right.
Mr. Hill. Could you answer--and this is an area I'm unclear
about. Incidentally, I have here a copy of the needs assessment
on the walls, and is there some way you could make that, in
some sort of a summary fashion, available to the public so that
people--I think there's some view on the part of some that we
haven't really identified what the problem is, but I think you
have done a pretty good job of identifying what the problem is,
specifically to the walls. Is there a way to get that
information----
Ms. Jacoby. I can----
Mr. Mihalic. We can make it----
Ms. Jacoby. Yeah.
Mr. Hill. I don't think everybody wants to read this, but
maybe some summary----
Ms. Jacoby. There's an executive summary in there, and
maybe the first step would be to pull that executive summary
out.
Mr. Hill. You could have that available to the public, if
it isn't.
What portion of the cost of this is in the alpine region in
your general estimates right now, on the alpine section of the
road?
Ms. Jacoby. I'll have to look to the back.
Do we know that, guys?
I may have to get that information from--They're broken
down by walls, but I don't know if it's specifically to
alpine----
Mr. Hill. The reason I ask the question is, obviously, one
of the alternatives is you could use one alternative in the
alpine areas and a different way of staging the work in the
other areas.
Ms. Jacoby. OK. For the fast-track, Alternative A, in the
GMP, the alpine section is almost $34 million, and the lower
section of the road is approaching $40 million. So it's almost
half and half, but not quite.
Mr. Hill. That's significant. I mean, you could use a fast-
track mechanism in the alpine area and not use that alternative
in the lower area of maintaining traffic?
Mr. Mihalic. That's just the walls.
Mr. Hill. That's just the walls?
Mr. Mihalic. Yes, sir.
Ms. Jacoby. No. It's retaining walls, guard walls,
drainage.
Mr. Hill. I'd just point out that--I think one of the
concerns that folks are having that's been expressed here is
the sense that we're faced with two alternatives when, in fact,
there could be dozens of alternatives out there, or at least
maybe several others, that we haven't examined because we
haven't done the engineering yet.
Ms. Jacoby. And I would say--Well, I look at that question
at two levels. Is there another alternative that's out there on
how to handle the traffic? I don't know that there is, because
either you're going to maintain traffic, or you're not going to
maintain traffic, or you're going to phase it some way.
Alternative A in my mind is kind of a combination of,
you're not going to maintain traffic on certain pieces, so you
can expedite construction there, but you're going to maintain
tourism access to Logan Pass and work that way.
The more detailed answer that there's been a lot of
questions on is whether there's other engineering methods to
reconstruct the walls or to reconstruct the roadbed or to meet
all these structural needs that the roadway section has, and we
have not precluded or written any final statement on what the
engineering method is going to be for any one of those
reconstruction pieces. What we have looked at is what we think
are reasonable methods within the industry right now to come up
with the timeframes and to help define what it might mean to
the public, but we have not precluded the consideration of
anything.
Mr. Hill. The section of road--Part of what drew us to the
conclusion we are at now is the sense that the experience in
1995 was so unsatisfactory that we had to come up with
something different. Is that a fair characterization?
Ms. Jacoby. I would say that's true.
Mr. Hill. What portion of that work that we did on that
occasion involved reconstruction of the retaining walls? Was
there a lot of retaining wall construction in that section of
road?
Mr. Mihalic. I think it was--I think actually retaining
wall reconstruction on that was very little. The folks behind
us might know.
Guard wall. Yeah. It was all guard wall. There was no
retaining wall, which would be, actually, below the road
surface, and the guard wall was 5 percent, 10 percent at the
very most, I would think.
Voice. To correct you, Dave, we did have the Triple Arches
section.
Mr. Mihalic. That's right. There was a section that was
removed from that Oberland Bend section at Triple Arches. That
would be an example of the problem that faces us, because with
that we had to close it for 5 days--I think it was 5 days, and
we actually exposed about a 100 feet long by 40 feet deep
section of road, and the only way to do that was literally to
close----
Mr. Hill. You don't dare put people over there if you don't
think the road is secure.
Mr. Mihalic. No. But on the other hand, during that
particular time, we had traffic up to Logan Pass and up to as
far on both sides of that particular section as we could, and
we did that in the fall, but that was very instructive of what
we were going to face on all these other walls that are of a
similar nature.
Ms. Jacoby. If I could add a comment to that, I don't have
the information sitting right here, but in doing the work we've
done to date with the National Park Service, we've gone through
the different elements of the road reconstruction work, and we
have made estimates of how many work days would be required for
all those different elements, based on our knowledge. That's
how we built the timeframes for the Park Service.
What we could do is we can provide that summary--I've got
some of it on this sheet, but I could provide that in a summary
statement, because, again, we can focus on the walls, but even
just glancing down this list, I might say that, easily, there
is 80 days required for some wall work, but there's 24 days of
pavement construction.
I know if we look at the time line that we developed for
the Alternative B where we maintain one lane of road at all
times, there's 4 to 5 years of construction time in that
scenario just for paving of the road because we physically
can't accommodate traffic and have trucks hauling asphalt and
operate paving equipment. That's a huge chunk of time, because
the only time we can pave is in the month of September and into
October.
Mr. Hill. But you can pave at night. I have a lot of
experience in the Washington area. They do all their paving at
night on all the roads around there.
Ms. Jacoby. And I came from the Washington area, so I'm
very versed at what we do there, but it's also a working
statement of whether we're hanging on the side of a mountain
versus whether we're working on a four-lane parkway at a 55-
mile-an-hour design.
You get a different quality of work if you do it at night,
and the bottom line, again, is staging when you're working on
the side of a mountain. What can you do?
Mr. Hill. I understand that, although you wouldn't have to
do paving simultaneous with the building of the wall.
I guess the point I'd just--Let's see if there's some
things we can agree on that folks can feel some satisfaction
with. Would both of you agree it would be valuable--and the
next question is, Is it necessary for Congress to do this?--If
we get some outside input here, that we go outside the confines
of where we are now and try to get some advice from other areas
that may have some experience with this?
Ms. Jacoby. We could include that. If we could have, like,
a day workshop or whatever, we can structure something to
involve outside industry.
Mr. Hill. I'm not thinking of a day. I'm actually thinking
of actually spending some resources to examine whether or not
there are alternatives here.
Ms. Jacoby. We can do that. I mean, originally, when you
said ``A day,'' we were going to do a show-me tour for private
industry to come in and look at the facility and share
information we had, and then they could come back and provide
input to us. So, you know, I have to defer to Dave as far as
how that would be structured within the Park Service planning
process because right now it is a Park Service planning
process.
Mr. Mihalic. Mr. Chairman, I think that, actually, what
you're speaking about now is at the cause of a lot of
frustration amongst the public. We could do that if we had an
authorized road and a repair program for that road. That would,
obviously, be the first step would be to get that information,
and going out to somebody else other than our partners would
certainly be a way to do it. In fact, I think, rather than
looking at what they've done in the past as limiting to the
question is really an indication of what Federal Highways has
tried to do even to this point, and I can't help but think that
they would want to get the best solution during the design
stage.
I think that the General Management Plan document tries to
set all this stuff up to accomplish this. We say that we want
an alternative that is the best alternative, and that's what
we're trying to do.
One of the earlier witnesses commented that this--that
there were ways to accomplish this that were--like were done in
an earthquake or somewhere else, and, quite honestly, what
we're trying to do in this regard is figure out, How can we
solve this without having to have the natural disaster to put
the resources to it?
We got to this point through this piecemeal approach of
only having a couple of million dollars a year to look at all
of this, and every time we would look at one aspect of the Sun
Road, we would see all these other problems, and so having a
comprehensive study from whatever source, whether it's from
within government or from without, to arrive at the best
solution I think would go well to allaying our own frustration,
and, certainly, if that were to happen, I think the public's
frustration would be met as well.
One of the things that I'm really----
Mr. Hill. Can I interrupt you 1 minute?
Mr. Mihalic. Certainly. Please.
Mr. Hill. Rather than necessarily saying that we authorize
the road, we could seek Congressional authorization for the
study. Obviously, that anticipates the fact we're going to
build a road, but I don't want to withhold moving forward with
the engineering study until I get Congress to approve $100
million authorization for the road. I mean, it would be easier
for me to get authorization to proceed with the study in
anticipation that we're going to improve the road, you
understand, for obvious reasons. So do we kind of have an
agreement that that would be a good thing to do?
Mr. Mihalic. Absolutely. In fact, I think that's, in
essence, what the General Management Plan is attempting to do
is to get the broad public support necessary to go forward with
a road reconstruction program. I think what we heard, at least
what I think we've heard this morning, is that there are a lot
of questions, and rightfully so, by a lot of different folks on
just how we would do that and what the impacts of that would
be.
And, unfortunately, the way our system is set up, we can't
get into the how we would do that and what the impacts would be
to the depth that everybody would be comfortable in until we
can have that broad direction on what we're going to do.
Mr. Hill. OK. So be more specific, then. I'm big on action
plans. What do we do from here, and are we in agreement on
where we want to go from here? Is it possible--I guess I'd ask
you whether you could support this or you think the Park
Service could, and if you can't answer it now, I'd like you to
answer it later. Can we do this two-track approach? I mean, can
we move forward with the inclusion of the General Management
Plan, concluding that we're going to reconstruct the road, but
leaving open the details in terms of how we're going to
accomplish that? Is that a possible alternative? That's
possible, now.
Mr. Mihalic. I'm smiling, Mr. Chairman, only because people
are going to be thinking you and I have been talking in the
hallway.
If we were to finalize the General Management Plan the way
it is now, it puts the administration in the fact of saying--of
going forward to the legislative branch and saying, This is
what we want to do. We want to reconstruct this road. So that's
the first thing.
The second thing is that, any implementation plan to
implement the GMP, which the administration would either have
to ask for or they'd have to be directed to do to implement the
GMP, would go to the level of detail we've all been talking
about here. If, in fact--That's why we have in the GMP, as I
think it was Mr. Hunt who quoted it, if there's new data, we
would get a new alternative. Under the policies of the Park
Service for that General Management Plan, it would be to amend
it, if amending were necessary.
We've tried to draft the GMP so that we might not even have
to amend it, but just to say, OK. We've found a better
solution. We've found a new and better way to do this. It still
meets the reconstruction focus of the General Management Plan
with respect to the road, and that's the way we're going to do
it, and I think that could be accomplished.
Mr. Hill. That would be a different alternative, though? It
would be different than the choice of alternatives that are
there now?
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct. Than the choice of
alternatives that are there now.
Mr. Hill. I would sure urge you to look at that.
Mr. Mihalic. And so I think, to be quite honest with you,
any implementation plan could really fit very well with this
General Management Plan. The General Management Plan even says,
if we have to do an additional EIS, we could do that, and it
specifically mentions the reconstruction of the Sun Road. The
details of that might require an EIS. So we've even tried to
build that into the GMP.
Mr. Hill. In the interim, certainly Congress could
authorize the engineering study and seek some outside input? I
mean, that could be a third parallel track?
Mr. Mihalic. That would actually be a good bridge to the
two processes because we'll never get to the implementation
study and the depth of--I think the depth of the questions that
were posed here this morning or the--certainly some of the
concerns until it's an approved project. Right now it's not
even an approved project.
Mr. Hill. You said earlier, I think, that you don't have
the authority to go beyond this in terms of the economic
analysis?
Mr. Mihalic. Not really, although we did offer some funding
to--Not very much. Just, I think, $30,000 to the State when
they were looking at their particular study, but we don't
really have a lot of wherewithal to do anything except for the
funding that I think is in the T21 bill for transportation
planning.
Mr. Hill. But if Congress was going to do something to
authorize some engineering analysis, it could simultaneously
authorize some economic analysis?
Mr. Mihalic. Absolutely.
Mr. Hill. Again, my concern here is to focus on the
mitigation aspects of this. I'm not interested in having to go
out and compile a whole bunch more data just to have a bunch
more data. To me the focus should be, first of all, how do we
link the engineering with the economics? Second, let's put the
focus on mitigation in terms of the economics. What can we do?
So those could be a--occur simultaneously is what we're saying?
Mr. Mihalic. Absolutely. In fact, I think that would be the
type of thing that could certainly speed the existing process
as it exists.
Mr. Hill. Since I have you in such a, Yes, mood, let me ask
the fourth question, then, and that is, how can we formalize
the involvement of citizens in this process?
Mr. Mihalic. You know, we've really tried to get as much
citizen input as we can, and we've done that throughout this
process. I think the reflection of citizen input is shown in
how the plan has developed over the last 3 years. In fact, as
one of the witnesses mentioned, the plan is open to the public
right now for public comment, and if the Committee wants, we
can include this hearing into that formal process, and we would
continue to do that.
I think one of the witnesses mentioned that we had focus
groups. We've had open houses. We'll have public hearings this
month and next month on this plan, on all different aspects of
the plan, and so our concern is that, first of all, any formal
advisory group might keep some segments of the public out and
that it would be a needless expenditure of additional funding,
which we don't have, and might cause us to have to actually
take a few steps back and not take advantage of all of the
public input that's gone on before.
So from what I'm aware of, a formal advisory committee
wouldn't be something that I don't think we--the National Park
Service could support, but the fact is that, that's not to mean
that we wouldn't work with any advisory group that was formed
in any other way, whether it was done by, you know, the
chambers of commerce or by the State of Montana, by some
outside engineering firm who was actually looking for new
engineering.
Mr. Hill. It seems to me, Dave, that there are two things
that concern me as we move forward here. We've spent a lot of
time talking about the economics here, and to a great extent
it's because of the concerns about that that we are here, but
the experience that we just had with the campground and the
objections that were raised in the environmental community over
that would seem to me to tell us that we ought to be talking
about, right now, a way for a little more formalized
involvement of the conservation community and the business
community on the environmental and economic aspects of this so
that we don't get down the road and then end up with a class-
action lawsuit against us from the business community or have
litigation against us from the conservation community that, you
know, delays it 10 years. I mean, you know what could happen.
So I know that the official position of the Park Service at
this point is, you don't want a citizens' advisory committee,
and I can understand why, because, really, that should have
been--If you were going to do it, it would have been formulated
during the Scobey process before you got to the point you are
right now with the Draft Management Plan.
Is there a way that we can focus on these two aspects of
that, that is, citizens' involvement on the environmental and
citizens' involvement on the economic mitigation? That's the
part that I'm concerned about. How are we going to mitigate the
environmental impacts? How are we going to mitigate the
economic impacts? To what degree can we get the interested
communities involved in those two things in a formalized way?
The reason for that is, it, obviously, causes you to have
to listen to them, and it gives them some standing both with
you and with the community that their opinions matter. As you
know, the public comment process, you know, is not a public
opinion process. You don't make the decision on the basis of
the weight of the public opinion. It may influence you, but
it--I'd like to see a more formalized--I'm not going to pin you
down anymore.
Mr. Mihalic. Obviously, Mr. Chairman, we would work with
any group that were formed, whether it was informal or formal.
One thing we might be able to do, obviously, if Congress
directed us to do so in terms of having, you know, more
formalized public input to consider during any kind of planning
process or as we do the implementation plans would be to simply
have open public forums or have open public meetings.
As you know, and just for the folks so that they'll
understand, the National Park Service concern is having a
limited group of named individuals to a specific committee
which then become powerful in their own right, and that doesn't
consider the opinions or the weight of comment from the general
public and from all those other people who might not actually
have a seat at that table, which is our only concern, I think,
to be quite honest with you.
If there is a way for us to do that in some sort of
semiformal or less formal manner, I think that that's what we'd
prefer. Obviously, if we're directed to do it in a more formal
way, I'm sure we would be very responsive.
Mr. Hill. Keep in mind, when you're talking about
mitigation, you're pretty focused in terms of what you're
trying to do.
Just to put that in perspective, one of the issues that you
heard commented here is comments about the road being closed,
and we've had conversation before about how sensitive the
public is to comments that the road is closed. The Park is
closed. If there's going to be an effort--It would be my
thought that, if there's going to be an effort to try to
mitigate this, it will take a cooperative effort on the part of
the communities and the chambers of commerce and the State of
Montana and a whole host of different people talking about, How
do you communicate to the public in a way that encourages
people to still come and see the Park? How do you accom-
modate that within the Park itself and concessionaires within
the Park?
I mean, all of that could work to mitigate the impacts of
this that has nothing to do with the construction.
Mr. Mihalic. Absolutely. That's, again, one reason why we'd
hate to see the whole General Management Plan held up just by
this one thing.
Mr. Hill. I agree.
Mr. Mihalic. Someone mentioned a visitor center on the west
side. That could go to a great extent to help with respect to
things in the off-season, the issues of the hotels and the
concessionaires. Until we're able to get a building physically
able to be used in other than the summer, whether that means
winterizing or not, we're not going to be able to use it in
those off seasons until we have the infrastructure and the
septic systems or sewage systems or water systems winterized in
such a manner that we can use those in other than just the
summertime.
So there are a lot of things that I think we could do and
we'd be very willing to do. As I said earlier, I think that, if
we work together to figure out how best to do this, we are very
ready to work with everybody involved to do that. Right now
it's really the system that prevents us from really tackling
this head-on because it's not part of an approved and funded
project, and if it's not an approved and funded project, it's
very difficult for me to take funds that Congress has directed
to me to expend elsewhere and apply them to an unauthorized
project.
Mr. Hill. Although you have a lot of flexibility with those
fee increases and focus those moneys in a variety of different
ways.
Mr. Mihalic. If--Yes, we do, but only due to the leadership
of Chairman Hanson and your Committee.
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much.
Ms. Jacoby, do you have any other comments about any of
this?
Ms. Jacoby. Just a general statement that we're willing to
work with the Park Service. We've done a lot of projects, and I
can't say I've been involved in any projects that really had a
formal citizens' advisory committee, but I've been involved in
a lot of projects that had open communication with the public
as we worked through final design, and we had a lot of good
information, and we were able to plan when we were going to go
to contract and make decisions enough in advance so that the
local business community could prepare to the extent they
could.
Mr. Hill. OK. Thank you, both. Any other comments you want
to make?
Mr. Mihalic. I might--If I could take just a moment and
speak to the Highway 49 issue, if you'd like, there's actually
quite a public record on that, and with all due respect to the
commissioner from Glacier County, it is Montana Highway 49. It
was not constructed by the National Park Service. It was
constructed by the Great Northern Railway. It's been an orphan
road very much like the Beartooth in a sense.
Mr. Hill. Is it still an orphan road?
Mr. Mihalic. It is a State of Montana highway. The Park
Service maintained it because no one else would, up until the
1940's, when our lawyers told us we had no authority to expend
Federal funds, and we worked out an agreement over time with
the State of Montana for them to take it over, which they did.
It took several decades to actually pass that to the State
of Montana, and I think that the real solution on Highway 49,
if it's the National Park Service that's to expend money on
there, is it has to be an authorized part of the National Park
System. Right now we simply can't go out and spend that money.
Mr. Hill. You're not soliciting that designation that
you're aware of?
Mr. Mihalic. I don't believe that's within my authority,
sir.
Mr. Hill. I know. We addressed that, as you know, with
Beartooth, which is truly an orphan road.
Mr. Mihalic. To be quite honest with you, Highway 49 is in
very similar circumstances in that it's on the reservation.
It's in Glacier County. It's within the state of Montana, and
it's near Glacier National Park, but other than the State of
Montana, there's no real clear direction, and, in fact, I think
the State of Montana removed it from their list of State
highways that were eligible for the State aid program. So it
really is out there in----
Mr. Hill. Provide us the history, and then we'll look at--
--
Mr. Mihalic. We could provide you with a lot of that
history.
Mr. Hill. Is that part of the solution here? Would
reconstruction of that road make a difference in terms of----
Mr. Mihalic. I think it actually would, to be quite honest
with you, Mr. Chairman, because it would go far for the focus
on the east side in terms of keeping visitors within this part
of Montana. I think some of the ideas that the Glacier County
commissioner testified to with respect to the Lewis and Clark
Bicentennial--It's been interesting. In public meetings over
the last few weeks, some folks have suggested that, in fact,
the best time to reconstruct the Sun Road would be right in the
middle of the Bicentennial rather than avoiding it, but I think
that until you start thinking of these sorts of things and
trying to think outside the box and looking at all these
different parameters, you don't arrive at those different
alternatives and those best solutions.
Mr. Hill. Even if it was determined that that was the
appropriate thing, there's some pretty serious challenges to
get there by then?
Mr. Mihalic. Absolutely.
Mr. Hill. One last comment I want to just make. I neglected
this. I was looking at the summary, of the exit survey summary
by Peccia Engineering for the survey, and this is one of the
things that kind of alarmed me a little bit, and that is that
the general assumption with regard to the economic impacts has
been, I think, that it be about a 20-percent reduction in
visitorship as a consequence of the reconstruction of the road,
and yet, if you look at the Peccia study, Question 8, the
question is, If Logan Pass was closed due to road construction,
would you still visit the Park?
These are people that came through the Park. Thirty four
percent said, No, and almost 4 percent said, Unsure, which is
about 38 percent. That's a substantial--I mean, if there's $100
million impact with 20 percent, it's going to be a lot more
than $100 million impact if it's 40 percent.
That was one of the concerns I have. Even aside from that,
even aside from that, I have a real serious question of whether
or not surveying 1,000 people exiting the Park is any sort of
scientific basis from which to draw that kind of a conclusion
anyway.
The real question is that, somebody sitting in Bismarck,
North Dakota contemplating where they're going to spend their
vacation and they find out that the road is going to be closed,
would they still come? I don't know the answer to that, and I
don't think this gives us the answer to that.
So if this underlying assumption upon which all the
analysis is based is wrong, then, you know, we don't know.
There's another side of this, and that is, the construction
is going to bring in employment, and people are going to have
to have temporary housing and eat meals. There's that aspect of
all this as well that could have an offsetting impact.
I don't know what all that is, and I don't know to what
degree it's your responsibility to do that, but I think it is
part of--ought to be part of the final decision as to just what
those impacts are going to be.
Mr. Mihalic. I agree with you, and, actually, it's the very
next question which says, Question 9, that, If there was
roadwork and you could still get to Logan Pass--that's where
the 80-percent figure comes from--would you come? Those two
questions had great impact in why we structured some of the
staging that Ms. Jacoby spoke about, part of the road on one
side having construction, part of the road on the other side
having construction, but always maintaining traffic to Logan
Pass, particularly because of those two questions.
So I agree with you very much that these studies have
tremendous impact, and it behooves us to ensure that they're as
accurate as possible.
At a chamber of commerce luncheon the other day, Dr.
Nickerson from the State of Montana--University of Montana
Tourism Institute was asked the question about how confident
was she in just surveying 1,000 people, and she seemed to feel
that you could survey 10,000 people, and it really wouldn't
change it all that much.
I think the biggest thing is, if we're going to put as much
concert or--as much into questions such as those two questions,
it behooves us to have the best data we can, and if that--If
the questions are so important that we should go do it again
with further study as we go into the implementation phase, I'd
say that that's exactly what we should do.
Mr. Hill. My current profession does cause us to have an
interest in polls sometimes, and I would just comment that, you
know, her statement is both accurate and inaccurate. If you
were to poll 10,000 people in the same circumstance, you'd
probably get a similar result as polling 1,000. The question
is, Did you poll the right people in the right circumstance?
Mr. Mihalic. That's true.
Mr. Hill. Since we're referring to additional questions,
then I'll refer you to Question 10, which says, If road
construction prevented direct access to Logan Pass, would you
take a 2-hour detour around the southern boundary of the Park
to visit the other side of the Park? Thirty six percent said,
No, and almost 5 percent said, Not sure.
Mr. Mihalic. That's correct.
Mr. Hill. About 60 percent of the people who were surveyed
exited on the west side of the Park. I don't know where they
entered, but I guess the concern that I would have is that, all
those point to a likely, more substantial impact than the
impact that was used for the assumptions, and I don't know
whether it's good or not good.
Mr. Mihalic. No.
Mr. Hill. That's why I just think we need to spend more
time on it.
Mr. Mihalic. I agree.
Mr. Hill. With that, I want to thank you very, very much.
Going to open this up for some public comment. I think we have
seven people. I urge you to stay and listen to the other
comments. Thank you very much. This has been a valuable
meeting. Thank you.
Mr. Mihalic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hill. We have a microphone back here for people who
want to make public comment. Our first person is George Darrow
from Bigfork.
George, again, I would urge you, if at all possible, to try
to confine your comments to about 2 minutes. If you want to
enter written comments to the record now or later, the record
will be open for 10 days.
Mr. Darrow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hill. And we're going to use the lights. The green
light is you can speak, and when it goes to yellow, you've got
30 seconds left, and when it goes to red, you're supposed to be
done, but you can tell nobody else is paying any attention to
that. Go ahead.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE DARROW
Mr. Darrow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is George Darrow. I'm a businessman in Bigfork,
which is some 45 minutes to an hour away from the west entrance
of Glacier Park, and I'm conversant with the tourism business
in the area, and I understand that Glacier Park is the core
magnet for visitation in northwest Montana and that the Going-
to-the-Sun Highway is the very heart of that, but, certainly,
it isn't the only attraction that is here to enhance vacation
experiences for visitors.
I want to applaud your efforts in championing this effort
to bring it to the attention of your colleagues in Congress and
to focus public attention on it generally, but Glacier is
actually the core attraction of a very large reaction complex
that straddles the Continental Divide and runs from northern
Montana up into Alberta.
And among the opportunities for mitigating construction
going beyond the corridor, a couple have already been
mentioned. One would be the visitor center at the Apgar
junction there, and that would certainly offer an opportunity
that would be comparable to the St. Mary visitor's center for
people approaching from the west.
The other option is to call attention to the attractions
that are available on U.S. 2, and rather than calling it a
detour, it is a scenic highway. It is not available to the
management of Glacier Park, but it is an option if Congress
could somehow bring about the co-
ordinated effort between the Forest Service and the Park. That
highway has--if it were anyplace else than northwest Montana,
would be a national scenic Parkway, and it has history of Lewis
and Clark. It has the history of the discovery of Marias Pass.
It has the history of the construction of the Great Northern
Railroad. It is, also, the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Highway.
The road itself has ample turnouts. If it had some
interpretation, if it had some marketing, if it had the
approval of Congress, the authorization for cooperation between
the Park and the Forest Service, I think that could go a long
way to maintain the visitor experience in this area and help to
mitigate the problems that we're concerned with.
Thank you.
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much, George.
Is it Rahn Armbruster? Is Rahn correct?
Mr. Armbruster. Rahn is correct.
STATEMENT OF RAHN ARMBRUSTER
Mr. Armbruster. My name is Rahn Armbruster. I'm a
conceptual designer, and I reside in Cut Bank, Montana.
I come here today to ask that a different route be
considered as a solution to the reconstruction of Going-to-the-
Sun Highway. The reason why I ask this request is from
observations which I have made.
At a meeting hosted by Glacier Park, Incorporated, a Park
administrator explained the National Park Service's
responsibility concerning Going-to-the-Sun Highway is to
preserve the experience. He further explained that each of us
has the right to the same experience that our parents had and
that our grandparents had as well. He also shared his
frustration in the process of bringing necessary change to the
Park.
Can I ask what the foundation is that has provided the
criteria for the design of the reconstruction of the Going-to-
the-Sun Highway? Is it preservation guided by tradition? Can I
ask you what affect preservation has on an environment that is
under constant change, constant evolution? And what role have
we taken in preserving the very namesake of this Park? Perhaps
preservation is not our purpose.
Have we confused preservation with protection? And what
affect does tradition have on the nature of the Park? How does
a traditional boundary between two countries who have never
been at war affect this Park? Would criteria from the very
source of why this Park was created provide true guidance for
this highway's reconstruction?
I believe that in returning to its origin we will find the
common thread which has brought us here together today, and in
returning to the origin of the National Park System, I believe
we will return to the very origin of our nation, not its
Constitution, but its Declaration of Independence.
Is observation of nature the cohesive simplicity that is
the common ground that connects all peoples of that nation? And
through following their hearts and giving themselves what they
truly needed, our forefathers gave themselves the freedom
necessary for their own evolution.
Does observation of nature lie at the very heart of why
this road was originally constructed? Would observation of
nature guided by the heart provide truer criteria for the
reconstruction of this highway? Through allowing our heart to
guide us, will the need for protecting this Park and its
inhabitants diminish with time?
To the east of Glacier Park lies the sculpture studio of
Bob Scriver, and through observation you will note the
evolution of his work over time, his early works being that of
taxidermy, evolving as Bob followed his heart to sculpture,
where he captures the beauty and spirit of the animal without
destroying it.
I believe something very special occurs when we allow
ourselves to be guided by our heart. We open our minds,
possibilities which are firmly rooted in love and understanding
and respect, and love never makes anything less or leaves
anything the same. Love always makes more through its actions.
I believe it is our mind which allows us to see only the
probabilities, and what difference would there be in the
reconstruction of this highway if observation of nature guided
by the heart were the criteria for its design? Would our heart
illuminate possible solutions for its reconstruction that our
mind cannot see, that would allow for continual flow of
observers over this mountain, giving us something we truly
need?
Can the heart guide us to a solution that would truly
reflect the beauty of Glacier, of nature itself and the beauty
of us as humans? Can our heart guide us to the design that
would allow a mountain to be a mountain where she needs to be,
and isn't this what our National Park System is all about,
allowing nature to be itself?
Could a road be designed so that it, too, reflects who we
are as humans? Through observation of our nature, are we not
both a physical being and a spiritual being? And is our
spirituality somehow connected to the depths of our
observations?
Mr. Hill. Mr. Armbruster, could you conclude this?
Certainly, we'll take that for the full record, but we've got
about three times the allowed limit, and everyone will want to
do that.
Mr. Armbruster. Should I quit now?
Mr. Hill. If you want to just----
Mr. Armbruster. I've got a couple paragraphs left.
Mr. Hill. All right. Go ahead.
Mr. Armbruster. And what could be learned through the depth
and observation of nature of such a road? If we could see the
beauty in a road which allows a mountain to be a mountain,
could a nation also see the beauty in allowing its peoples the
freedom to be human? Could a nation also see the beauty and
returning to its source for guidance into the future?
What risk do we take in returning to our origin to seek
guidance for our future? Do we fear that we won't find truth in
our very foundation?
I believe that when we allow an open mind to guide us back
to our source we will make the return without judgment, and in
doing so we will see the beauty and love of which our
foundation is made. We will find our heart. We will discover
the cohesive simplicity which connects us all together on
earth, and somehow, when we return to our heart, our origin
with an open mind, something very wonderful happens. We open a
door, and as the lyric in the love scene from the motion
picture Titanic states, Once more we open the door, and the
heart goes on.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. Hill. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Roscoe Black. I urge you to try to stay close to 2 minutes,
please.
STATEMENT OF ROSCOE BLACK
Mr. Black. You mean I just can't carry on and carry on?
I'm Roscoe Black, owner of St. Mary Lodge on the east
entrance to Glacier National Park where Going-to-the-Sun
Highway meets Highway 89. Of course, we're going to be one of
the most heavily impacted businesses if and when this
reconstruction of Going-to-the-Sun Highway occurs.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you very much for
taking the lead in this important issue, and most of the items
that I was going to talk about have been thrashed and
rethrashed and brought to the forefront.
I think that, from my personal aspect, basically, what I
was looking for from this meeting was to have the aspect on
reconstruction of Going-to-the-Sun Highway be a broad brush
statement saying, Reconstruction of Going-to-the-Sun Highway
will occur within this Management Plan, but the specifics on
how it is to be done and where and how the funding, et cetera,
will happen will come after additional studies have been done,
and I think that Mr. Mihalic virtually agreed that that's the
direction that we're going to be heading, kind of a double
track here, and that we are not going to be confined to the
time line of the Management Plan to make a decision on whether
or not we're going to close this thing for 6 years or we're
going to have continuous traffic or what are going to be the
eventual determinations.
If we can take that out of the time line, I think a great
number of the people who are very concerned about this issue
can breathe a lot easier, because we're not going to have to,
within a 90-day period, determine the longevity of our
businesses.
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much, Mr. Black. I think that
that's what we have agreement on or at least are moving toward.
Our next spokesman will be Bob Retz.
STATEMENT OF BOB RETZ
Mr. Retz. Thank you, Congressman Hill.
My name is Bob Retz, and my wife and I own the North Forty
Resort in Whitefish, and I'm also in the securities business
and have been for most of my working life. I'd like to say,
since this problem with the road closure surfaced 6 months ago
or whatever--it's been close to the recent volatility of the
stock market--I feel like I'm on the endangered species list
that we've been talking about here all afternoon.
I'd like to make a few brief comments about the perspective
of a small businessman running a resort in Whitefish. For those
that don't know, we have 22 log cabins, and I would say 70
percent of our business comes during June, July, August and
September, and by far most of our guests are out-of-state
guests. Even though, if they stay for a week, they may only go
up to the Park one of the days and do everything else that the
Flathead Valley has to offer during the remainder of their
stay, without question the Park is the draw that brings them
into the state of Montana. At least, you know, that is our
experience.
And already there has been--We have been receiving calls
where people just hear a bit of information about, you know, Is
the Park open? I hear it's going to close. Last year, when we
had a late opening because of the heavy snows, we also received
a lot of those calls, people that had heard and wanted to
cancel their reservations.
I mean, this is a very important problem, and I think the
analogy of an earthquake is very valid. You know, in this case
we know the earthquake is perhaps 4 years away, but it's still
coming, and everybody says, You've got a lot of time to prepare
for it. You hit the nail on the head. How do you prepare for
it?
One of things I've been thinking about since the long bond
hit 507 this morning of trying to refinance my debt, the
problem is, How do you go to a financial institution with any
kind of economic projection that would make them comfortable to
want to refinance debt when you don't know how to make those
projections and the future is so uncertain?
So the thrust of my comment is, what we talked about here
very briefly earlier, if there's any kind of Federal loan money
that could be made available to people that could refinance, or
even some low interest rate, short-term transition money that
would help people through the 2 or 3 years that their side of
the Park is going to be closed.
Thank you.
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much, Bob.
Onno Wieringa. Did I pronounce that right?
Mr. Wieringa. That's pretty good.
Mr. Hill. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF ONNO WIERINGA
Mr. Wieringa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Onno Wieringa from Glacier Raft Company in West Glacier,
Montana.
This has been a great process. I applaud you for your
efforts. When I read the EIS, I was confused. I was trying to
decide what it was trying to do, and Superintendent Mihalic
this morning said, We've determined that the essence of the
road is going to remain the same; i.e., there's no tramways.
We're going to maintain it as a roadway for vehicles, doing
about what they're doing now.
I thought that was adequate for what the General Management
Plan should be trying to do. That's a big deal, to not decide
that they were going to turn it in to any number of different
things with it. That's kind of the scope of how a lot of other
things in the Park--in the plan came across.
Then, maybe additionally, it should say, And we've
determined that there's some real problems with the road, and
it's going to need some major reconstruction and some serious
maintenance soon, and here is some of the mitigating measures
that we think need to happen that go along with those, and
somebody better get busy and start studying how to get that
done and leave it at about that.
You know, as Dave--As Will pointed out, it went beyond that
in deciding when it was going to be closed and for how long
without having the stuff to back it up.
I think it's all good. It just went too far for what the
General Management Plan needed to do.
Mr. Hill. Thank you. Thank you very much.
We'll try one more time with a name. Betty Rudisill. She
had to leave, I guess.
John--Is it Helton or Melton?
Mr. Helton. Helton.
Mr. Hill. Helton. It's hard enough to pronounce them when
they're printed clearly, John.
STATEMENT OF JOHN HELTON
Mr. Helton. Good afternoon. My name is John Helton. I'm the
manager of Alpine Homestead outside of Martin City. We have a
small ranch, and we have four guest cabins that we rent out.
I21With my position I have the privilege and am lucky to get up
on the road quite a bit with guests and friends, and I just
would like to stress that the road is in bad shape. It's
sloughing off. You can see the asphalt going sideways in
places. It does need to be closed.
Having looked at the EIS a little bit and just looking at
the economics of how it's going to effect the road closures, as
a corporation, we support the closing of each side of the pass
or one side and then the other in keeping Logan Pass open. I
think that would probably have the least amount of impact for
businesses by having to keep the pass open, but also, as Mayor
Hall earlier pointed out, there's other roads that do need to
be improved, the Looking Glass Road and even the road to the
North Fork. The one border crossing there with Canada is closed
right now, and that could be reopened as well, even just
temporarily.
Again, I think the roadway does need to be fixed up, and
sooner rather than later. Mother Nature is going to take care
of the problem for us. There's been talk about lawsuits, the
idea that, you know, businesses are going to have lawsuits. I
imagine the lawsuits will be generated by folks that are be
driving the roadway when the roadway falls off. I would say we
need get going on this sooner than later.
Thank you.
Mr. Hill. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Helton may be found at end
of hearing.]
That concludes the hearing. I want to, again, thank all the
panelists for their participation and their involvement. I
think this has been very constructive for me. I think we're
leaving here with some action agenda that we need to go to work
on. I thank the public for its participation, and with that,
this will close the hearing of the Parks and Public Lands
Subcommittee of the Resources Committee.
[Whereupon, the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
Statement of David Mihalic, Superintendent, Glacier National Park,
Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, it is my
pleasure to welcome you to Kalispell, gateway to Glacier
National Park. Thank you for the opportunity to address the
subject of maintenance and repairs to the Going-to-the-Sun
Road. We applaud your interest in seeking ways to maintain the
values preserved by our national parks, which are so important
to all Americans and also critical to local communities near
the parks.
Glacier National Park covers just over 1 million acres in
northwestern Montana. Approximately 2 million visitors a year
come to Glacier, the majority in June through August.
Conservative economic models indicate that use of Glacier
National Park generates about $160 million a year to the state
of Montana and provides some 2,400 jobs.
A general management plan guides the administration of each
unit of the National Park System. Glacier's last master plan
was completed in 1977. A draft general management plan is now
before the public for review. Our first public ``scoping
meetings'' were held in the spring of 1995. Since then we have
had a number of opportunities to listen to the public, those
both near and far, so we can incorporate their comments into
our planning.
One of the most controversial issues is how to rehabilitate
the world famous Going-to-the-Sun Road. This national landmark
has been widely recognized as perhaps the most scenic road in
North America. Its development in the 1920's and 1930's made
possible experience of the park enjoyed by most visitors since
then. Previously, the magnificent scenery of Glacier was only
seen by those who could afford the time and expense of rail
travel and weeks on horseback.
Horse-drawn scrapers and steam shovels were used to build
the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was carved out of the side of the
Garden Wall by dynamite, pry bars, and sweat. The route, which
was chosen by the Director of the National Park Service, had
only one switchback--the Loop--in order to maximize the scenic
views from the road. For most people visiting the park, driving
the road is the focal point of their visit.
The deterioration of the Sun Road was recognized by the
Service over a decade ago. With the passage of the Intermodal
Surface Transportation and Efficiency Act, funds were made
available to the National Park Service for park road
construction across the nation. Glacier and the needs of the
Sun Road competed with other national park needs across the
country. Work was done by the Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA) along Lake McDonald and the St. Mary sections beginning
in 1989. Today we are continuing work on the western side of
the Continental Divide in the vicinity of Avalanche. The only
work scheduled in the next few years is on some of the most
critical repair needs on the retaining walls in the alpine
section of the Sun Road and a slumping section of the Many
Glacier Road. These sites are sections of the road where it is
easier to maintain visitor trafficc during construction, even
though delays still result. There is no approved program
allocation beyond the year 2000.
The Park Service knows that we have to tackle the
substantial backlog of the critical needs in the high, alpine
zone of the park road. This zone has a very short working
season and presents many construction challenges. It is not
easy--and it is expensive--to rebuild a road so that it will
remain safe and serviceable in the face of traffic and
environmental stresses on the highest stretches, especially, of
this road.
In 1995 and 1996 we worked on less than a half-mile of road
in the Logan Pass area. For those who remember, it was a
nightmare, both for the contractor and the public. Some of the
delays seemed interminable. We tried many things and learned a
tremendous amount from that experience. For example, we tried
night work, lane closures, and scheduling major work in the
fall--all the steps that quickly come to mind. Mostly we
learned that working on this high, narrow, carved-from-a-cliff
national landmark cannot be done without conflicts and impacts
when the construction season and the visitor season are almost
one and the same. We learned that actual construction times
could triple the times in our original schedule. We have had to
reevaluate how quickly we could rebuild sections of the road
that we expected to rebuild in two years.
As a result, the Service and the FHWA put our most
experienced engineers and transportation planners to work on
how best to continue to repair the road and minimize the impact
to visitors. We are using the general management plan process
to seek public input. We quickly learned three things. First,
doing the work conventionally with the funding we could
normally expect from the Park Roads and Parkways Program would
take decades to complete. Second, being able to maintain traf-
fic flow--which really means insuring visitors to Glacier would
be able to continue to traverse the park--is a tremendous
complicating factor. Finally, the costs of different
alternatives vary radically, from approximately $70 million to
$210 million.
We have been very concerned since the beginning about the
potential for tremendous economic impact. We know that the road
work might impact the whole state, especially as Montana
prepares for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. We also know
that are different economic interests at stake, whether one is
located east of the Divide or in the Flathead, is in a retail
or service industry, or in a gateway community or visiting
Glacier.
The National Park Service arranged for studies of the
economic impacts on local Glacier dependent businesses and the
broader travel industry. Those studies indicated that the
economic pain only gets worse the longer the work drags on.
Since then, the University of Montana has conducted independent
studies arriving at similar conclusions.
To quote our draft general management plan, the National
Park Service prefers an alternative that preserves the historic
character of the road, completes the repairs before the road
fails, minimizes impacts on natural resources, visitors and the
local economy, and minimizes costs. Based on the best available
information, Alternative A [fast-track reconstruction of 4-6
years] ``appears to best satisfy those criteria." (GMP
Overview, p.49 1998.)
Mr. Chairman, I wish I could sit before you today and tell
you we have a plan, and the money to carry it out--to rebuild
the road without disrupting anything. But I cannot. The
National Park Service does not have the fiscal resources that
come anywhere near matching the road needs of our national
parks. For every tax dollar spent in Glacier on the Going-to-
the-Sun Road there are three dollars of need in other national
parks that will go unmet.
For me to be fiscally responsible, I must recommend the
alternative that best expends our nation's public funds in a
manner that is in the best interests of all citizens in keeping
with the National Park Service mission. We have proposed what
we believe to be the best solution given the parameters and
knowledge we have to date. Believe me, if there is a better
solution, I will be the first to embrace it! We do not want to
see the road closed from the public any more than absolutely
necessary. But we also do not want to see some catastrophic
road failure cause a total road closure that could have even
greater economic consequences.
I also pledge to you that we see this as an opportunity to
work closely with the surrounding communities and the state of
Montana. During the time we are developing detailed design
plans for the reconstruction, we will work with the communities
and the state to mitigate as much as possible the effects on
the local and state economies during the period that the road
is under construction. In fact, I hope we can use the challenge
we all face with the road construction to forge the most
successful cooperation yet among the park, the state and the
affected communities, to better serve our visitors.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership in bringing
these issues to the forefront. Glacier National Park is one of
world's treasures. The Going-to-the-Sun Road is perhaps the
most spectacular roadway in the national park system. Our
agency's mission is to preserve these treasures for future
generations and also use them for the benefit of the present.
We embrace that challenge and realize our obligation to also
seek solutions that are the best for all and serves our public
trust. I assure you that is our goal.
That concludes my formal remarks, Mr. Chairman. I would be
happy to respond to any questions that you may have.
------
Statement of Carol H. Jacoby, Division Engineer for Western Federal
Lands, Highway Division, Federal Highway Administration
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am Carol Jacoby, Division Engineer, Western Federal Lands
Highway Division (WFLHD), Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA), Vancouver, Washington. I would like to thank you for
the opportunity to testify before this field hearing on issues
related to the future maintenance and repair of the Going-to-
the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Montana.
The National Park Service (NPS) is the Federal Agency with
oversight and management responsibilities for Glacier National
Park. The NPS is in the process of updating its General
Management Plan which includes strategies to improve the
condition of the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
The WFLHD has been assisting the NPS in assessing roadway
and transportation needs at Glacier National Park. The FHWA's
assistance has been at the request of the NPS, and is not an
independent initiative. This assistance is being provided in
accordance with the 1983 Interagency Agreement between the NPS
and FHWA.
The WFLHD's assistance began in 1984 with a study to
rehabilitate the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This study identified
the condition and operational characteristics of the roads in
Glacier National Park as well as reconstruction and improvement
alternatives for the continued safe use of these Park roads.
The WFLHD has updated the findings in the 1984 study and has
conducted other studies to assist the Park in identifying
alternatives to expedite rehabilitating the Going-to-the-Sun
Road which will minimize disruption to the traveling public
visiting the Park.
Since the 1980s, improvements have been initiated on this
historic Park road. The work within Glacier National Park has
been challenging due to difficult terrain; the importance of
preserving park values, which impact how and when the
reconstruction projects occur; and the need to accommodate the
traveling public while performing work.
In summary, the WFLHD is committed to assisting the NPS in
developing and refining alternatives in the General Management
Plan to expedite rehabilitating Going-to-the-Sun Road and
simultaneously minimize impacts on the traveling public
visiting the Park and adjacent edge communities. We appreciate
the opportunity to provide comments at this important field
hearing.
------
Letter from Hon. Conrad Burns, a Senator in Congress from the State of
Montana to Hon. Rick Hill
United States Senate,
Washington, DC,
September 21, 1998.
The Hon. Rick Hill,
1037 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC.
Congressman Hill:
I want to congratulate you for your attention to Glacier National
Park and the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
It seems there are few easy answers to the infrastructure needs at
Glacier. Whatever course we take with the Going-to-the-Sun Road--
whether it be shorter-term action, longer-term action or even
inaction--it will have great implications for the park and for the
families and communities that depend upon the park for their survival.
That's why it is extremely vital that we have all of the information
and opportunities for public input that we can afford.
Glacier National Park is truly one of our national treasures. We
must do everything in our power, in accordance with our stewardship of
the Park System, to preserve it and also to help provide for the
demands of continued visitation. In light of this, today's hearing is
an important one, and you are to be applauded for your efforts.
Sincerely,
Hon. Conrad Burns,
United States Senator.
______
Statement of Gary D. Hall, Mayor and Owner, Columbia Falls, Park View
Inn Bed & Breakfast
I begin this five minute disertation by thanking Representative
Hill for his leadership and concern for this most important event in
Montana's history. On behalf of small businesses of the Flathead Valley
we truly thank you. We, as you know are a minority and it is real mce
to know that we are being considered and given a voice at this most
crucial time.
I don't believe that GNP is out to hurt small business but I do
believe there are some inequities in alternative A, road closures. I
applaud the efforts put forth by GNP by the reports put forth and the
willingness to listen to the community So I would ask that you listen
real carefully today to all that is brought before you.
The Federal Highway Administration proposed a 15 year
reconstruction plan with partial closures and several untried measures
to allow visitor use and GNP did not offer this to us, why. At
Representative Hill's last meeting in Kalispell a man from the Dept. of
Transportation told us how rock walls can be built on the vally floor
and be lifted in place which can save many days and many dollars.
Another concern is that there has not been a formal engineering
study on the road and that should be a concern for all of us, we must
know all the facts before pushing hundreds of businesses to extinction.
We have made everyone aware that up to this point there is not a
citizens advisory board in place and we must insist on having that in
place before we move any further.
The economic study that was done at the University of Montana was
good but one of my concerns is the talk of promoting people to come and
plan their vacation around observing the construction. No matter how
you look at it or present it, it's a bad deal. I know that if I am
going to spend an average of $206 per person per day in the park, why
in the world would I want to spend it doing that. It would be a
marketing miracle to pull that one off and one we shouldn't risk.
People who don't own a business, or whose hopes and dreams aren't
hinging on whether the road closes or not will get their say today, and
tomorrow, but please, hear our cry and don't shut us out.
I also believe that the public deserves a full and separate
enviromental and economic review of the options. Also it seems that we
may be putting the cart before the horse. We are beginning this process
without committed funding. Are we going to close the park for
reconstruction and then try to get the funding, I would sincerely hope
not.
There has been talk of the importance of communication and
marketing. GNP needs to communicate to people now and forever that
Logan Pass is and will always be open, no matter what the scenario we
come to. Once again we must take the word closure out of our
vocabulary, literaly. Also by the information given to the media and
the press to this point about the road being shut down for
reconstruction we have had a minimum decline in tourism to the state of
20 percent. We cannot expect the general public to understand all that
is going on at this end.
I also find it disturbing that the road reconstruction plans ended
up in the general management plan in March. I would ask that it be
removed. NEPA (National Enviromental Policy Act) demands that any major
construction of this nature must have its own EIS (Enviromental Impact
Statement). The construction of Going to the Sun should be removed from
the General Management Plan.
No one has mentioned the fact that the accomodations tax that is
collected will not be there if we lose the anticipated $65 to $125
million that would be lost if we were to follow through with
alternative A, 2 year closure on each side.
In closing I offer these personal views. 1. Do not settle for
anything being done unless one lane of the road be left open. If a
tunnel has to be fixed then at that time let tourists know the way to
access Logan Pass is to go around to the other side but don't advertise
the C word. 2. Do everything possible to keep the $160 million income
and 2400 jobs going strong. 3. A suggestion by a local business
directly effected by the proposal is to extend the Many Glacier Road to
the North Fork Road, which would create a loop. This would allow repair
to the road to happen at any time, even emergency closures by
accidents, rock slides etc. It would also make opportunity for
campsites off the North Fork Road from Cames Creek to Columbia Falls
thus taking pressure off the park. 4. Lastly, and I hate to end on this
note but to let you know how serious local businesses are to being sure
that they are protected, there is in place $6000 from only 2 businesses
so far that will be applied to a class action lawsuit if necessary to
protect our businesses and our futures.
Again thank you very very much for allowing me to express these
grave concerns as an elected official along with the views of other
local business people directly affected by the road closure proposal.
Respectfully submitted.
______
Statement of Lowell W. Meznarich, Glacier County Commissioner,
representing Glacier County, Montana
Representative Hansen and honorable members of the Subcommittee.
My name is Lowell Meznarich and I am an elected commissioner
representing Glacier County. All of Glacier National Park which is east
of the continental divide is in my county. Given that fact, all issues
which affect Glacier National Park are important to Glacier County. My
fellow commissioners and I have cautiously monitored the discussions
regarding the future maintenance and repair of the Going-to-the-Sun
Road in Glacier National Park. Simultaneously, we have questioned our
local population to obtain their input on the matter at hand. I am
pleased to have this opportunity to offer our collective thoughts.
No local issue in the past five years has seen greater scrutiny
than the options given to repair the Going-to-the-Sun Road. All of the
options will be harmful to the tourism industry in Northwestern
Montana. There is a solution however. One of the options coupled with
several other enhancements has the potential to get the work done
effectively while also providing a unique opportunity to assist the
East side of the Park in reducing its tourism loss. I am strongly in
favor of closing one side of the Road at a time, leaving the other open
up to the Visitors' Center at Logan Pass and reducing the impact on the
economy by taking advantage of a upcoming significant event.
Item Number 1 The closure of the East side of the Road should
coincide with the observance of the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition. The large increase in visitors for the bicentennial will
help a great deal with the expected reduction in visitors to Glacier
National Park because of the road work and closure. Planning to have
these two events at the same time will be a tremendous benefit to
Glacier County. The years 2004 through 2006 would be ideal for the East
side closure. This is important since within 25 miles of Cut Bank, the
Glacier County seat, are two of the most significant sites along the
Lewis and Clark trail.
The first, Camp Disappointment is where Meriweather Lewis with
three of his party discovered that the Missouri River drainage did not
cover as much territory to the north as originally hoped. The dreary
overcast day not only added to their disappointment, it also obscured
the Rocky Mountains which were just to the west.
Had the day been clear, Lewis would have plainly seen the opening
to Marias Pass, the lowest elevation pass through the Rocky Mountains.
Lewis was within easy sight of one of his most significant potential
discoveries, but he would never know. The possibilities of that missed
discovery have been romanticized for years.
The Fight Site is the location of the following days camp. At this
site, Lewis encountered and camped with a group of Blackfeet Indians.
The following morning was the only armed conflict of the entire
expedition. The fight over horses and weapons resulted in the death of
two of the Blackfeet party and a close call for Lewis who wrote,
``Being bareheaded at the time, I plainly felt the ball pass over my
head.'' This encounter took place near the banks of the Two Medicine
River in an area which historians consider the most primitive and least
changed in the nearly two hundred years since the explorers journey.
Use of this site will also provide an additional introduction to the
Blackfeet Indian culture which is another of the great treasurers of
our region.
The residents of Glacier County are quickly learning that the
upcoming Bicentennial is gaining national and international attention.
Already, Glacier County residents have taken the first few sparks of
interest, added their entrepreneurial spirit and developed creative
business ventures to cash in on the expected rush of adventuresome
tourists. With the expected increase in visitors to our area, I believe
we can significantly reduce the negative economic impact of the closure
of the East side of the Road. A carefully crafted promotion would be
very beneficial to Glacier County.
Item Number 2 Regarding the Lewis and Clark trail sites, we need
assistance to improve access opportunities to the sites themselves.
Traveling to each site presently requires driving on undeveloped roads
followed by a walk of up to one mile. The roads are one lane only and
are often not more than a slightly worn path through the natural grass.
The walk is over easy terrain, but the path is not clearly visible in
many areas. Any improvements should maintain the present condition of
the sites and not detract from the natural state each site presently
enjoys. As such, many portions of the road and trail will merely need
simple markings to keep the traveler on the proper path. Other areas
may need compaction work and/or a light gravel application. Much like
work in Glacier National Park, any improvements to these sites must
preserve and protect the area. Little has changed since Lewis appeared
at these sites. We need to keep it that way since that is precisely why
these sites appeal to a significant number of Americans. These
improvements could be accomplished with a very small amount of funding.
Both sites are located on and accessible only through private land.
I believe we must immediately pursue public acquisition of the sites
and access. If that is not possible, in the least we must have
agreements in place which allow for public maintenance and access when
appropriate.
While access is important, the American people in general and the
local residents in particular will want to also limit access to the
sites. This is necessary to protect the visitor from hazardous driving
and walking conditions caused by weather or darkness. It is also
important in protecting the sites themselves and to protect the road
and walking trail from damage. It is also important to control the
number of vehicles and visitors on the road and walking path at any
time. The areas are generally fragile terrain, so control is absolutely
necessary.
Item Number 3 Glacier National Park must do everything in its power
to trumpet what is available to the visitor and to downplay the Going-
to-the-Sun Road closure. We don't need the headline to scream that the
Road is closed. Instead, leading up to and during the East side
closure, national and international promotions should extol the
uncommon beauty of our many East side areas like Two Medicine, St.
Marys, Many Glaciers and even Canada's Waterton National Park.
Promoting jointly with Waterton should become a priority. The
opportunities to experience the Lewis and Clark sites should also be a
significant part of this promotion.
Item Number 4 Get the job done! The recent Logan Pass area
improvement project is exactly what we don't want. That project took
too much time, went significantly beyond its expected time line and
greatly frustrated the Park visitors. The projected time lines for the
Going-to-the-Sun Road are already dangerously long when considering the
economic health of the local business people who rely on tourism for
their livelihood and also for the people who rely on those businesses
for employment. The construction contracts should place significant
demands for timely completion including, as appropriate, stiff monetary
penalties if the work is unduly prolonged.
Item Number 5 Glacier National Park must accept primary
responsibility for repair and maintenance of Highway 49 which is known
as the Looking Glass Road. This road is the north south link between
East Glacier Park, Two Medicine and St. Marys. The road was originally
constructed by the National Park Service and for years was maintained
by them. Since it is outside the park boundary, the Park Service has
chosen to allow the road to deteriorate. At present, the Looking Glass
Road is generally open on the same calendar used by Glacier National
Park. The road is not maintained during the winter. Like Going-to-the-
Sun Road, the Looking Glass offers a unique view of Glacier National
Park, which is just to the west of the road. The road itself winds
along the slopes of the mountainous terrain and is extremely popular
with our local out door enthusiasts. Traveling the Looking Glass Road
greatly shortens the distance around the southern border of Glacier
National Park when traveling from St. Marys to West Glacier. It will
clearly become the route of choice for the visitors who want to see
both the East and West side of the Park during the road repair
closures.
In summary, I support the closure of one side of the road at a time
with several enhancements: the East side closure occurs within the
years 2004 to 2006 to coincide with the greatest interest in the Lewis
and Clark Bicentennial; access and control to the Lewis and Clark sites
are improved; the Park Service promotes what there is to offer,
downplaying the road closure; the job gets done in a timely manner; and
the Park Service maintains the Looking Glass Road. With these five
easily attainable enhancements, I am confident the Park Service will
find general support for the road repair project.
FOLLOW-UP ADDRESS:
TOPICAL OUTLINE:
Suggested solution--Close half of the Going-to-the-Sun Road at a
time and reduce the economic impact through several means.
1. Time the East side closure with the observance of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition Bicentennial years 2004 through 2006.
2. Improve and control access to the Lewis and Clark sites in the
area.
3. Promote the Park and the area, including the Lewis and Clark
sites, and downplay the road closure. Promote jointly with Canada's
Waterton National Park.
4. Get the road repair done in a timely manner.
5. Maintain the Looking Glass Road to provide visitors with better
access to all areas of the Park.
______
Statement of Roger Running Crane, Vice-Chair, Blackfeet Tribal Business
Council, Blackfeet Nation, Browning, Montana
Good morning or good afternoon . . . I bring you greetings from the
Blackfeet Nation and would like to first of all, thank the Honorable
Rick Hill who sits on the House Resources Subcommittee on National
Parks and Lands for scheduling this hearing and allowing us to provide
testimony for the record.
My name is Roger Running Crane, Vice-chairman of the Blackfeet
Tribal Business Council, which is the governing body of the Blackfeet
Nation.
Historically, Glacier National Park was part of the original land
base of the Blackfeet people and was later transferred to the hands of
the United States Government through a treaty in 1896. We still claim
treaty rights in the park that include privileges to hunt, fish, and
gather wood. Presently, our western boundary of the Blackfeet
Reservation is Glacier National Park. I point this out because it docu-
ments our presence before and after the creation of the park that
serves as a showcase for the entire world to enjoy its natural beauty.
With that said, The Blackfeet Nation would simply like to offer
their human and natural resources in the proposed future maintenance
and repair of the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
These resources consist of a qualified work force, unlimited
amounts of and access to gravel and other road construction materials.
We have land adjacent for recreational and campground use by the
tourists who may wish to choose to visit only the east side of Logan
Pass when the Going-to-the-Sun Road is under construction. Finally, the
tribe also offers any other resources in assisting the Park Service to
make the construction phase an experience that we can all benefit from.
In closing, Congressman Hill, the tribe is sensitive to the
economic downside of the tourism industry if the road construction is
to occur. By not being viable participants in that industry for reasons
that I will not go into, we simply want to maximize the economic
opportunities for our people who are at the lowest economic rungs of
the ladder in this country. Any economic stimulus for our people is
welcomed and I'm sure the surrounding communities in Blackfeet Country
would agree as well since they too reap the benefits of those dollars.
Again, thank you for this opportunity and we reserve the right to send
additffonal documents for the record within the 10-day time period
after this hearing.
______
Statement of Richard B. Hunt, Vice president, representing Friends of
Glacier, Inc. Kalispell, Montana
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, Panel Members, and
interested persons, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you
today representing Friends of Glacier.
Friends of Glacier was formed with the purpose of assuring access
to the Glacier National Park and opposing any plans to diminish access
during the publication of and hearings on the draft Newsletters in 1997
which related to the General Management Plan (GMP) for Glacier National
Park.
By 1924, Park officials had promoted a goal to ``enable people to
reach the interior of the Park even if they could not afford the rates
of the Great Northern Railroad and its chalets.'' In 1925 the Bureau of
Public Roads began to oversee the building of the Going-to-the-Sun Road
(GTTSR) which traversed Logan Pass and connected the east and the west
and gave people the opportunity to reach the interior of the Park. In
1933 Park officials attained their goal as visitation increased by 44
percent with the completion of the Road.
This marvel of engineering and construction, which literally carved
a road from the sides of mountains, completed 22 miles of the most
difficult stretch of the proposed road with primitive equipment by
today's standards. In the current management plan developed by Glacier
Park planners, the preferred alternative fast-track reconstruction of
the Road plans on 4 to 6 years to complete, with the most modern
technology and equipment and working on the base road already present,
only 8 miles more than that done from 1925 to 1933. Alpine road
construction techniques of today should be able to do better!
However, that is only part of the story. Several other shortcomings
are present in the GMP related to the GTTSR. Two critical issues were
identified by the Park planners related to the Road: ``Visitor Use on
the Going-to-the-Sun Road'' and ``Preservation of the Road.''
(1) In the preferred alternative of the first issue, several
actions to be taken relate to an expanded transportation system,
modifying and/or adding pullouts, picnic areas, and short trails
[although it is interesting to consider adding picnic areas on the
GTTSR while removing one at the Avalanche Creek Developed Area also on
the GTTSR]. There is little in the plan which identifies the impact of
those ``actions'' on the newly completed ``reconstruction.'' In our
view some linkage should be in the GMP.
(2) In the preferred alternative of the second issue, several
criteria were established to develop the ``preferred,'' minimize
impacts on visitors, and minimize impacts on the local economy. The GMP
suggests that local business persons would have time to develop the
mitigation for the impact of closing one side of the Park's GTTSR for 2
to 3 years, then close the other side for 2 to 3 years; it is the
Park's criteria yet the GMP says little about how the Park would assist
in such minimization plan. The GMP also says little about measures to
be taken to minimize the impact on the visitor. These two areas of the
General Management Plan are deficient, in our view.
One of the most disturbing deficiencies in the GMP is also related
to one other aspect of this ``oversight hearing:'' maintenance. Little
is said about long term need to maintain the Going-to-the-Sun Road
after it is reconstructed. This GMP is to provide guidance to the Park
for 20 or so years; yet preservation of the Road also means
maintenance, and maintenance deserves a place in the General Management
Plan.
Friends of Glacier recognizes and applauds plans to improve access
by adding pullouts, picnic areas, short trails and emphasis upon a safe
GTTSR for visitors to appreciate one of the ``premier experiences'' in
the Park, which is to traverse the Road from east to west and west to
east. We also recognize and appreciate the plan's efforts to preserve
the Park and preserve this Park as a traditional western park.
Friends of Glacier stands ready to participate in finding solutions
to some of the short comings we see in the GMP. Directors and officers
of Friends of Glacier attended the meeting held in Kalispell by
Representative Rick Hill in June 1998. Many ideas were presented
including the suggestion that more time was needed to examine the data
and to consider forming an advisory group with alpine road construction
experts, local business persons, and interested citizens to determine
the effective, economical methods of construction, time frame and
strategy with the least impact on local, regional, and international
economies as well as other activities which would mitigate the effects
of this necessary and important project.
Park planners tell us on page 50 of the Draft General Management
Plan, Environmental Impact Statement that ``The National Park Service
prefers an alternative that would preserve the historic character and
significance of the road, complete the needed repairs before the road
failed, minimize impacts on natural resources, visitors, the local
economy, and minimize the cost of reconstruction. Based on the best
available information, alternative A appears to best satisfy (sic)
those criteria because it is the most fiscally responsible and would
result in the least impact to the local and state economy over the long
term. If new data and analyses revealed information that would better
respond to the criteria, a different alternative would be selected in
the final plan (emphasis added).'' How would that data and analyses be
``revealed'' to the Park Planners?
In summary, Friends of Glacier continues to support the broadest
possible access to Glacier National Park. We ask that our testimony
will cause the Park planners and this Committee to seek ways to improve
the connection between the two critical issues discussed: ``Visitor Use
on the Going-to-the-Sun Road'' and ``Preservation of the Going-to-the-
Sun Road.'' We are not suggesting specific actions at this time.
As indicated, Friends of Glacier stands ready to be a part of any
method for arriving at solutions to those short comings we have
identified.
Thank you, Chairman Hansen for the opportunity to present our views
and questions.
CURRICULUM VITAE
RICHARD B. HUNT
Employment Background
January 1986
Retired from the Santa Rosa City Schools, Santa Rosa, California
1966-1986
Director of Compensatory Education/Consolidated Application [All
state and Federal education programs except Special Education and
Vocational Education, Santa Rosa City Schools, Santa Rosa, California]
[Adjunct Responsibilities]
1980-83
Chairman, Executive Board, Wine Country Consortium (Napa, Novato,
Santa Rosa School Districts) for School Plan Review and School Program
Review Activities
1964-65
Counselor, Herbert Slater Junior High School (Part time) Grades 7-
9, Santa Rosa City Schools
1964-65
Chairman, English Department, Herbert Slater Junior High School,
Santa Rosa City Schools
1965
Director of Summer Reading Program, Grades 7-12. Santa Rosa City
Schools, Santa Rosa, California
1955-65
Teacher of English and Journalism, Grades 7-9, Herbert Slater
Junior High School, Santa Rosa, California
Education
1951
Graduated University of San Francisco, B.S. in Arts with Major in
English, Minor in History and Philosophy
1955
Awarded General Secondary Credential from San Francisco State for
Grades 7 through 14
1959
Earned M.A. in Secondary Education from San Francisco State
1965
Earned General Pupil Personnel Credential from Sonoma State for
Grades K through 12
1969
Earned Standard Supervision Credential for Grades 7 through 14
1981
Issued Service Credential--Life Authorization, R-54 (General
Administrative for Grades K through 12)
[N.B. All credentials earned or issued are for the State of California]
Special Skills
Consultant
National Assessment of Educational Progress, Denver--for Reading
American Institute for Research, Palo Alto--for Reading
1970-75
Sonoma County Office of Education--Program Planning
Marin County Office of Education--Program Planning and Program
Review
1975-78
California State Department of Education--Participated in Program
Review Activities
1985-86
California State Department of Education--Participated in Program
Review Activities
1981
Sonoma State University--Assessed Master Degree Program for Reading
1982
Western Association of Schools and Colleges--Reviewed Castro Valley
High School as School Improvement Interface Team Member
1985-86
California State Department of Education--Served as a Program
Review Trainer
1998
Flathead Land Trust--Served as Facilitator at Board Retreat
1998
Kalispell City-County Planning Board and Zoning Commission--Served
as Facilitator for Development of Consensus Document for Draft of
Kalispell City-County Master Plan
Community Activities
1970-73
1982-84
President, Sonoma County Council for Community Services, Santa
Rosa, California
1973-76
Served on Community Relations Commission, Santa Rosa City Council--
one year as Chair
1982-86
Member Human Services Commission, Planning Subcommittee, Sonoma
County, California
1987
Member, Citizens Personnel Committee, District 8, West Glacier
Board of Trustees, West Glacier, Mt.
Member, Citizens Building Committee, District 8, West Glacier Board
of Trustees, West Glacier, Mt.
1989-94
Director, Glacier Natural History Association
1991-92
President, Glacier Natural History Association West Glacier, Mt.
1996-Present
Member, Board of Directors, Flathead Community Concert Association,
Kalispell, Mt.
1996-Present
Member, Director, Vice-President, Friends of Glacier, P.O. Box
5001, Kalispell, Mt 59903-5001
1997
Member, Going-to-the-Sun Road Focus Group
Military
1944-46
Served in the U. S. Navy--Honorable Discharge
______
Statement of Will Brooke, President, Glacier-Waterton Visitors
Association
For the record, my name is Will Brooke and I appear here today as
President of the Glacier-Waterton Visitors Association which is
comprised of business owners throughout the Glacier and Waterton Park
area. We have members from Kalispell, Hungry Horse, West Glacier,
Columbia Falls, Cut Bank, East Glacier, St. Mary, Montana as well as
Waterton, Canada, to name a few of the affected areas in the Glacier-
Waterton area. Some of our members, such as Roscoe Black and his family
at St. Mary and Lisa Lundgren and her family at West Glacier, have been
providing service to Park Visitors for over sixty-five years. Members
such as these know and understand the issues and history surrounding
the Park as well as anyone in the country.
I also appear here as a business owner who will be directly
impacted by any decision resulting from the Glacier Park General
Management Plan and EIS. My wife and I own and operate the St. Mary-
Glacier Park KOA Kampground on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation outside
St. Mary, Montana.
Thank you for the opportunity provide testimony on the Glacier Park
General Management Plan and EIS. I appreciate the extraordinary efforts
the Committee has taken to conduct this oversight hearing in Montana. I
know that you have invested considerable staff time, travel budget, and
your own time to travel from Washington DC to conduct this hearing. I
want to especially commend Chairman Hansen and Congressman Hill for
having the foresight to understand the consequences this General
Management Plan will have on our lives here in Montana as well as the
Northwest.
While I know the object of this hearing is to obtain comments on
the draft General Management Plan, my testimony will focus today only
on a few aspects of the Plan, specifically the Going-to-the Sun Road
and that portion of the plan dealing with the the preservation of the
historic hotels.
I want to commend the National Park Service for focusing attention
on the issue of how we are going to deal with maintenance, improvement,
and preservation of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The public, the public
officials we elect, and the government employees who work for the
public must make a long term commitment to protect this international
treasure. The present administration at Glacier National Park has been
the victim of deferred maintenance by prior administrators and
inconsistent Federal funding. Congress has also had its hand in this
problem by removing requested funds from Federal highway dollars
targeted for Going-to-the-Sun Road
Notwithstanding these problems, the Park Service's approach to this
problem is--at a minimum based on improper procedure and public
involvment and--at a maximum just plain wrong.
We hope the Park Service is not wrong. In fact, if the Park Service
is ultimately correct in its proposed action, we will get behind the
Park Service and help in every way possible by assisting in obtaining
necessary funding from Congress, working on public relations and
information to mitigate the perception that the Park is closed, and
otherwise working with the Park Service.
However, whether the Park Service is correct in its proposed action
for the Road is the key issue as I testify here today. We do not know
the answer, nor do we believe any person, including the Park Service or
the Federal Highway Administration knows the answer based on the
information gathered and analyzed thus far.
The EIS for the General Management Plan has been proceeding through
the NEPA process for years. In the most recent draft Management Plan
that was released in late August, the Park Service attached a new
section to address reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Going-to-
the-Sun Road. This section proposes a major, significant new Federal
action with enormous impacts to the environment and the economy. You
have or will hear from other witnesses about the economic impact this
decision will have on our state. They are significant. And those
numbers are based on an optimistic timeline which may not be realistic
after reviewing some of the Federal Highway information.
This last minute inclusion in the Plan of a major new Federal
action does not comply with the letter or the spirit of the NEPA and
EIS process. It has not been properly scoped, the information, studies,
and data supporting the action are nothing more than generalities, and
there is a general failure to consider all of the appropriate
alternatives.
A General Management Plan is a general guide of how the Federal
land will be managed for a period of time--usually about 10 years. The
proposal for the Sun Road is not consistent with this principle.
Rather, it is site specific, date specific and project specific. We
believe the decision to close the Road necessarily commands a separate
plan and Environmental Impact Statement.
The Plan only offers three alternatives including a ``no action,''
alternative. The remaining two have a narrow scope and few details. Our
Association offered to help develop an alternative for the Sun Road
reconstruction. This offer was refused by the Park Service on the
grounds that it would be a violation of the Federal Advisory Committee
Act. I find it difficult to believe Congress wanted to keep the public
out of this kind of process when this legislation was enacted.
There are other alternatives that could have been included in this
proposal. We know, based on recently obtained information from the
Federal Highway Administration, that Federal Highways analyzed at least
one other alternative that appears to have merit, yet the Park Service
did not include that in the draft EIS or explain why such an
alternative was not considered.
The two alternatives the Park Service selected have little
supporting information, facts or details. In the information
Congressman Hill obtained from the Federal Highway Administration, the
figures used by Federal Highways do not match the figures presented by
the Park Service in the EIS. There is no information that tells us how
they used the data provided by Federal Highways or why the Park Service
came up with different alternatives, with different estimated years for
completion of construction projects and different estimated costs.
Clearly, the public deserves to know this and to be assured that the
Park Service is not attempting to gather public support for the
preferred alternative by mitigating the expected impacts through
selective use of numbers and data.
For instance, we note that the Federal Highway Administration has
detailed a list of ``essential requirements'' the agencies must adhere
to in order to meet the estimated timelines and costs for these
alternatives. The Park Service failed to include these in the EIS, even
though Federal Highway Administration repeatedly stresses that these
requirements are ``critical for success.'' I have attached these
requirements to my testimony, but our Association believes the
``Essential Requirements'' have their own set of impacts and the public
certainly deserves to see the entire picture.
There is other information from Federal Highways which was not
included as attachments to the EIS. The information that was just
recently obtained from Congressman Hill's office is not a part of the
public record. We initiated a call to Congressman Hill's office and
through his efforts, as well as Senator Conrad Burns, we have now
obtained this information. All of this should have been in the EIS and
the public should have full access to this information.
In contrast to the lack of information which was not included,
there is other information which was included that is questionable at
best. For instance, we do not agree with the economic predictions
suggested by the Park Service. Part of the predictions are based on a
``survey'' of Park Visitors. The survey was done by an engineering firm
and polled tourists who had just traveled the Sun Road. You do not even
need a background in polling to know that such a survey is skewed and
of little value. The survey should have used as its sample population
persons who had requested information about visiting Montana or Glacier
Country. If you tell potential vacation planners who have not seen
Glacier that the Road will be closed, the com-
petition by other states and countries for that same visitor will most
assuredly cause the visitor to wait on the Glacier trip.
Even assuming the poll has validity, the Park Service is misquoting
the data. The Park Service has said 80 percent of those surveyed said
they would skill come to Glacier. A closer reading reveals that only 60
percent of those surveyed would visit the Park if the Road is closed.
While the Park Service may believe people will be able to distinguish
one-way closures from total closure, the reality is any ``closure''
whether temporary or longterm, is reported as closure.
The Park Service uses this survey to assure businesses that they
can expect only a 20 percent decline in visitation during construction.
Using the number from the survey, it is probably more accurate to
predict a 40+ percent decline in visitation. Ultimately, the survey is
not a reliable predictor and to embark on a project with skewed
unscientific information as the basis of data leaves no constituency
well served. I have attached a copy of the survey for the record.
The Park Service contends they have selected Alternative A as their
preferred alternative based on the ``best available information.'' We
have just now been able to review some of the information the Park
Service used as their ``best available information'' and would submit
that there is (1) gaps in the best available information, (2) the
information may not have been fully analyzed and (3) possibly the best
alternative has been prematurely determined.
7. Current Federal funding levels for road construction in Glacier
Park do not provide for reconstruction of the Sun Road and other Park
roads at the same time. Glacier Park receives about $2.8 million a year
from the ISTEA. Both of the alternatives offered in the General
Management Plan would cost upwards of $80 million to complete. Knowing
this increase in appropriation will take some work from Montana's
Congressional Delegation, it seems we should work towards securing this
commitment in conjunction with the delegation, not let fear and panic
that the road is ``deteriorating'' create an emergency fiscal crisis in
Congress.
Any decision on this road deserves and demands a strategic plan,
with fully researched impacts to resources, visitors and the local
economy. In fact, the Park Service agrees! In May of 1997 they wrote in
an internal document ``Such a huge and potentially expensive project
must receive the benefit of strategic thought before the present course
continues.'' We do not believe the issue has had the benefit of this
and we urge Congress and the National Park Service to remove the
proposals for reconstruction on the Going-to-the-Sun Road from the
General Management Plan and give this the thought and attention it
requires.
(More on the historic lodges in the final statement. Bottom line,
we do not believe the Park Service can afford to buy anything when it
can not maintain what is has.)
______
Statement of John E. Helton, Abbott Valley Homestead, Martin City,
Montana
To whom it may concern:
We have a small ranch outside of Martin City and in addition to
raising hay and a few head of cattle we also rent out tourist cabins on
our property. Needless to say, we are very interested in the expected
time-table and cost to the local economy as well as the Federal
coffers.
From the information gathered so far from the local and state
papers and radio, we think the best path for the road work to be
completed is to do it quickly, the least cost, and with the least
amount of tourist disruption. To that end we support the plan to close
each side of the pass while road work is being done and still allowing
access to Logan Pass. While as residents of the area, we know there is
so much more to Glacier than Logan Pass, we also know that it is one of
the main draws to the Park. Being up front about the closures,
publicizing them, and giving tourists many travel options, via Travel
MT, Glacier County, etc., will help convince folks that this area is
still worth visiting. Our main form of advertising is the Internet and
we plan to be very up front about the expected road closures both in
our web pages and in links to the expected web pages describing the
road reconstruction progress--a definite must.
It can only be expected that there will be a drop in revenues from
lost tourist dollars, what we don't want to see is a long term
hemorrhaging. Montana, according to many of our guests, already has a
reputation for summer road construction delays and nothing is going to
change that unless the Earth's climate changes (hopefully not anytime
soon). Having rolling delays spread over multiple years would do
nothing to change the perception and would probably drive more people
away over the long term. Or maybe not: we do support the ``bed tax''
being used to conduct polls and studies to find the best solution
possible. What is definite about spreading the reconstruction over 5 to
50 years is the greater cost. If we are going to spend more tax dollars
on Glacier, we would rather not have it all go into asphalt!
Increased shuttle service, both for road workers and tourists, is a
must to limit the expected congestion on the still open side of the
Pass. Having good operational plans for getting injured people out of
the park and to medical care is a necessary component of the road
construction plans as well. Like the ``show me days'' the Park has for
the snow clearing operations, I think the same program might apply to
the road re-construction. This letter has been written before the
information/comment meeting of 9/21/98 in Kalispell and we will be
amending our views as further information necessitates.
To finish up, it is very evident the Going-to-the-Sun road needs a
lot of work. We have been up on the road almost on a weekly basis this
spring and summer, both on foot and by car and it very evident in
places where the roadway is starting to fall off--not a good confidence
builder for the observant driver. While rock fall from above is always
going to be a problem--we hesitate to think just what the consequences
would be if the roadway was to fall off with cars and people on it. I
would also think waiting till 2004 might be starting late but more on
that later.
Thank you for your time and effort. All good problems deserve a
good solution and keeping the public informed and engaged is the best
way to achieve the solution.
______
Statement of Rahn Armbruster, Cut Bank, Montana
I come here today to ask that a different route be considered as a
solution to the reconstruction of ``Going-to-the-Sun'' Highway. The
reason why I ask this request is from the observations which I have
made.
At a meeting hosted by Glacier Park Incorporated, a park
administrator explained the National Park Service's responsibility
concerning the ``Going-to-the-Sun'' Highway, is to ``preserve the
experience.'' He further explained that each of us has the right to the
same experience that our parents had and that of our grandparents as
well. He also shared his frustration in the process of bringing
necessary change to the park.
Can I ask what the foundation is that has provided the criteria for
the design of the reconstruction of ``Going-to-the-Sun'' Highway? Is it
preservation guided by tradition?
Can I ask you what effect preservation has on an environment that
is under constant change--constant evolution? And what role have we
taken in preserving the very namesake of this park? Perhaps
preservation is not our purpose. Have we confused preservation with
protection? And what effect does tradition have on the ``Nature'' of
the park? How does a traditional boundary between two countries who
have never been at war effect this park? Would criteria from the very
source of why this park was created provide truer guidance for this
highway's reconstruction?
I believe that in returning to it's origin we will find the common
thread which has brought us here, together, today. And in returning to
the origin of the National Park system, I believe we will return to the
very origin of our nation. Not its constitution but its Declaration Of
Independence. It was Jefferson's observation of Nature that provided
source for our Nation's design. Is observation of Nature the cohesive
simplicity that is the common ground that connects all the peoples of
this Nation? And through following their hearts, in giving themselves
what they truly needed, our forefathers gave themselves the freedom
necessary for their own evolution.
Does observation of Nature lie at the very heart of why this road
was originally constructed? Would observation of Nature guided by the
heart provide truer criteria for the reconstruction of this highway?
Through allowing our heart to guide us, will the need for
protecting this park and its inhabitants diminish with time? To the
east of Glacier Park lies the sculpture studio of Bob Scriver. And
through observation you will note the evolution of his work over time.
His early works being that of taxidermy evolving, as Bob followed his
heart, to sculpture. Where he captures the beauty and spirit of the
animal without destroying it.
I believe something very special occurs when we allow ourselves to
be guided by our heart. We open our minds. Somehow, in a manner which I
cannot explain, our heart leads us to the possibilities. Possibilities
which are firmly rooted in love--in understanding and respect. And love
never makes anything less, or leaves anything the same. Love always
makes more through it's actions. I believe it is our mind which allows
us to see only the probabilities.
And what difference would there be in the reconstruction of this
highway if ``Observation of Nature guided by the Heart'' were the
criteria for its design. Would our heart illuminate possible solutions
for its reconstruction, that our mind cannot see, that would allow for
continual flow of observers over this mountain? Giving us something we
truly need?
Can the heart guide us to a solution that would truly reflect the
beauty of Glacier--of Nature itself--and the beauty of us as humans?
Can our heart guide us to a design that would allow a mountain to be a
mountain where she needs to be? And isn't this what our National Park
system is all about? Allowing Nature to be itself?
Could a road be designed so that it too reflects who we are as
humans. Through observation of our own Nature, are we not both a
physical being and a spiritual being? And is our spirituality somehow
connected to the depth of our observations?
And what could be learned through depth in observation of the
Nature of such a road. If we could see the beauty in a road, which
allows a mountain to be a mountain, could a Nation also see the beauty
in allowing its peoples the freedom to be human? Could a Nation also
see the beauty in returning to its source for guidance into the future?
What risk do we take in returning to our origin to seek guidance
for our future? Do we fear that we won't find truth in our very
foundation? I believe that when we allow an open mind to guide us back
to our source, we will make the return without judgment. And in doing
so we will see the beauty and love of which our foundation is made. We
will find our heart. We will discover the cohesive simplicity which
connects us all together on earth. And somehow when we return to our
heart, our origin, with an open mind something very wonderful happens--
we open a door.
And as lyric in the ``Love Theme'' from the motion picture
``Titanic'' states:
``Once more we open the door . . .
and the heart goes on.''
Thank you for your time and consideration.
______
Statement of Sharlon L. Willows, C.L.A., Certified Legal Assistant,
Adminstrative Law, Hungry Horse, Montana
Hello Representative Hill. My name is Sharlon Willows, I am a
Certified Paralegal in Administrative Law, I have personally conducted
research on Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTSR) and other Glacier Park
management issues for the last 15 years throughout the early
development of GTSR Cultural Management Plan (which isn't listed in the
Draft EIS Bibliography) and Glacier's Transportation Plan of (Jan.
1991). As coordinator of CCP, Inc., I have conducted extensive FOIA
research on these and other Glacier Park matters over the years under 5
USC 552.
I urge Congressional attention to some very critical omissions and
deceptions that underly the newly released GMP DEIS. The seriousness of
these require an immediate congressional inquiry into essential missing
or unavailable background information regarding the safety & condition
of GTSR such as:
(1) the comprehensive plan prepared by FHWA to develop &
justify the construction alternatives is not listed in Draft
EIS Bibliography and is only briefly mentioned on p. 48. Where
is it? Where are the details? This document should be available
for interested parties to review during the EIS comment period.
Why are the construction alternatives so general, vague, and
unsubstantiated?
(2) the Bibliography shows numerous recent MPS contracts were
let to Bioeconomics, Inc. and Robert Peccia & Associates for
background studies on SocioEconomic impacts & Traffic Safety
Analysis for the Draft EIS. The DEIS states these studies are
``on file at Denver Service Center'' (p.287,293). Why are they
unavailable? NEPA requires these essential background analysis
to be available for review during the DEIS comment period. What
can Rep. Hill do to make these documents available now for
review as required by NEPA regulations?
Glacier's historic management philosophy has been development
outside the park (see 1977 Master Plan FEIS). Therefore, a sizable
local economy has grown over the years based on historic management
philosophy, that is, the 1977 Master Plan FEIS and the park's
Statements for Management documents issued regularly since then.
The park is lying to the public by claiming they are ``Keeping it
like it is.'' The new GMP Draft EIS secretly changes management
philosophy; first, by failing to disclose the Existing or historic
management zoning (as found in Glacier's Statements for Management, map
attached), which is a NEPA violation on its' face (NEPA requires
disclosure of Existing Conditions, necessary for agency and public
review. How else can we know what the baseline is, before the park
makes substantial changes?). Secondly, by presenting a totally new
management zoning scenario for the park on (pgs. 19-40). This is major
deception being perpetrated in the draft EIS without public involvement
or knowledge; that is, the secret rezoning of Glacier Park.
Based on my years of research and gutfeeling, I believe the Park is
intentionally delaying necessary and previously planned incremental
repair projects while expecting the road to fail in order to obtain a
massive contract for their Preferred Alternative A (p.49). This may be
agency negligence under Emergency Repair regulations and
requirements.Waiting for construction in 2004 appears unreasonable.
Meanwhile, the Park has secretly rezoned the GTS Road corridor from
primarily natural & historic zone to ``visitor services zone'' (compare
SFM Existing Zoning map attached with GMP DEIS, pgs. 19,2O,30). In
other words, while local businesses may suffer outside the park while
the road is shut down, a multinational corporation, the owner of
Glacier's major concessionaire, has achieved a new free reign for new
publicly funded facility development inside the park. The secret
rezoning situation appears to be a preplanned corporate takeover of
Glacier Park corridor business interests, an inappropriate
collaboration that underlies this GMP DEIS.
In summary, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) studies,
assessments, and plans to proceed repairing the GTS road in timely
incremental projects are missing from the Draft EIS record. These were
background studies prepared for the 1991 Transportation Plan. The DEIS
also fails to consider a night construction alternative to facilitate
necessary repairs in a more timely manner; another indication that
delay is the game.
The GTS Road has been studied completely. Where is this
information? As confirmed by park officials recently on one of my
research tours, there are thirteen (13) ``hotspots'' on GTSR. These are
areas that could easily or currently do qualify under DOT Emergency
construction regulations. Therefore, we've got a serious negligent
scenario here, with Federal agencies ``hiding'' the most relevant facts
in an unnecessary ploy to shut down GTS Road and secretly rezone
Glacier for interior development.
Again, Glacier's historic management as been development outside
the park (see 1977 Master Plan FEIS). If the public wanted to ``Keep it
the way it is,'' why the mayor secret zoning changes with possible
serious adverse consequences for local businesses outside the park that
pay local and state taxes the multinational corp. doesn't.
Please understand, further study is a trap to create irresponsible
delay & allow the road to fail, thus allowing Federal agencies to have
no choice but close the road, adversely impacting local businesses
outside the park. Meanwhile, the multinational corp. gets its' foot in
the door with the secret rezoning of Glacier's GTS Road corridor. This
scenario requires immediate Congressional investigation. Thank you very
much for the opportunity to be heard.
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Statement of Gilbert K. Bissell, Owner/Manager, Aero Inn, Kalispell,
Montana
Dear Congressman Hill:
As the owner and manager of a hotel in the Flathead Valley
and past president of the Flathead Valley Chamber of Commerce,
I would like to express how critical the Going-To-The-Sun Road
construction will be to my business and to many businesses in
Northwest Montana.
At the Aero Inn I employ an average of 14 employees.
Several hotels in the Flathead Valley employ significantly more
employees than the Aero Inn, many employ less. We make 60
percent of our annual revenue during the months of June, July,
August and September. (1993 59 percent, 1994 60 percent,1997 58
percent). A vast majority of our summer guests are Glacier Park
visitors. To lose this critical summer season revenues would
literally spell the end of my business and many others
throughout Northwest Montana. The loss of any summer season
would directly impact hundreds of lodging industry employees.
This doesn't even begin to address the impact on retailers or
the indirect impact of money spent by tourism industry
employees and businesses.
I don't think that all Going-To-The-Sun Road construction
options nor all economic impacts have been adequately explored.
The Going-To-The-Sun Road is undeniably a national treasure
which must be preserved for future generations and which must
be addressed soon. There are no cheap or easy solutions to
repairing the road, but the only viable solution is a
cooperative effort between the Federal Government, The National
Park Service, Travel Montana, The State Government, Local
Chambers of Commerce, Local Convention and Visitor Bureau's and
the citizens of Northwest Montana.
A comprehensive marketing plan is absolutely critical for
future ``damage control'' before construction is begun.
Extensive resources and money for this plan must be made
available on the Federal, State and Local level.
I have always felt that Glacier National Park needs to do
more positive press releases such as ``we have ----------
campsites open, the waterfalls are at their peak, the flowers
are blooming now, ---------- miles of trail are now open and
passable, cruises are available on ---------- lakes, ----------
-- rangers are on duty to give nature tours and talks'' etc.
What we typically hear is negative such as ``a boulder fell on
a tourist, a portion of the Sun Road collapsed, or a bear
munched someone'' (granted these are newsworthy stories!) With
a portion of the Sun Road closed, positive press releases will
be even more critical.
Please do not interpret this as a motel owner worried about
losing a little business. If that were the case, we'd budget
for a slow year or two and survive it. I'm worried about a
summer or more, bad enough to bankrupt our business and that of
many others in the Flathead Valley. The construction plan and
the marketing plan demand very careful forethought and
expertise. Please insure that this plan is an extremely high
priority.
If I can be of any assistance to you, please feel free to
contact me at any time.
Thank you for your time and your concern in this matter.
------
Carol H. Jacoby, Division Engineer for Western Federal Lands, Highway
Division, Federal Highway Administration, response to questions from
Mr. Hill
Question: Could you provide information regarding curve
widening and the selection and application of road design
standards?
Answer: The American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials (AASHTO) issues a reference guide
titled, ``A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and
Streets.'' This publication is updated periodically to reflect
changes in design practice. In addition, AASHTO publishes
numerous highway industry design and construction manuals,
which are used as ``guides'' in the application of highway
engineering.
In 1984, the National Park Service published ``Park Road
Standards,'' which defines the standards to which the park
roads should be constructed, operated and maintained. The
development of these standards included an issuance of a Notice
of Public Review, published in the May 1, 1984, Federal
Register. Consistent with the philosophy encompassed in the
AASHTO design guide, the National Park Road Standards allow for
flexibility in the planning and design of park road facilities.
Flexibility is necessary to accommodate variations in the type
and intensity of the use, the terrain and climate conditions,
and to protect the natural and cultural resources in the
National Park system areas.
Question: What is the application of design standards on
park roads in Glacier National Park, where, as part of an
ongoing construction project, pavement material is being
removed?
Answer: In Glacier National Park, there is a 4000 linear
foot section of road which was built to a 22-foot travel way
width. This section of the road was widened to a 26 foot travel
way width as a result of flooding repairs completed in the
1960's. As part of the ongoing construction contract, 4 feet of
pavement width in this 4000 foot roadway section is being
removed to provide a consistent 22 foot travel way for the
entire section of road. A 22 foot paved travel way for the
Going to the Sun Road is consistent with the NPS Park Road
Standards publication.
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