Glacier National Park Superintendent David Roemer highlighted several key infrastructure projects that were funded over the years by the Great American Outdoors Act during a meeting of the Republican Western Caucus Aug. 20.

Roemer said the funding has been “essential” in financing park projects.

Those projects included rebuilding 9.3 miles of the Going-to-the-Sun Road from Apgar to the Lake McDonald Lodge, replacing the McDonald Creek bridge at the North Lake McDonald Road; upgrading the water system in Park headquarters and upgrading the water system at Swiftcurrent in the Many Glacier, which also included rebuilding and redesigning the parking lot and road in the Swiftcurrent Valley.

Roemer said the work at Many Glacier is ahead of schedule and should be completed by this fall.

It not only includes a water upgrade, it also added a second well to the water system, so there’s redundancy in the system. Before, it only had one well and in the event of a fire or other emergency, the valley would have had to been evacuated.

The existing system was more than 50 years old and was leaky.

The Sun Road work completed a multi-year rehabilitation project of the scenic highway that started in 2006. 

The Great American Outdoors Act, sponsored by Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines in 2020, had bipartisan support and provided full, mandatory funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and about $1.3 billion per year for five years to address the Park Service maintenance backlog.

Daines, who did not attend the caucus, is now promoting the America the Beautiful Act, which would  provide an additional $11.2 billion in funding for maintenance and infrastructure projects for the next eight years.

The bill has bipartisan support, with Senate Democrat Angus King of Maine, Republican Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia co-sponsoring the bill

That bill is still being considered by Congress. 

Meanwhile, Roemer also talked about a list of future projects, including replacing the parkwide communication infrastructure, replacing the Many Glacier wastewater treatment plant, constructing an emergency operations center, installing the remaining horizontal drains on the Many Glacier Road, rehabilitating 2.6 miles of the Many Glacier Road, adding five more four-season toilets to the park and adding a curatorial storage facility.

He also spoke about upgrading the sewer and water system at Granite Park Chalet. The Park Service currently has to airlift out the human waste each fall, which is stored in drums. It also does not have any potable water, though a spring-fed stream does run nearby just down from the chalet near the campground.