Letters to the editor March 24
Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 1 week, 4 days AGO
Holland Lodge proposal
The Flathead National Forest has submitted a proposal for public comment to allow for the rebuild and expansion of the Holland Lake Lodge wastewater system.
The Forest is proposing an expansion from 343,000 gallons to over 1.2 million gallons of capacity, all without justification and construction costs being paid for by the taxpayers.
About 90% of the new capacity will benefit the private for profit Holland Lake lodge; not the public campground at Holland Lake.
There is no mention in the proposal about expanding public opportunities at the campground, all expansion centers around the private lodge, which sits on public lands.
There is no mention in the proposal about a traffic safety plan to mitigate the increased traffic of 1,500 truckloads of material on Holland Lake road to build the new facility.
There are no environmental considerations by the Forest Service to combat the bear attractant created by a 343,000 gallon, untreated raw sewage lagoon that sits in the heart of prime grizzly bear habitat and conservation area
200 yards from a public campground.
Visit the Save Holland Lake FB page to learn more and make your public comments heard.
- Dean Johnson, Missoula
Free press
Our secretary of defense doesn’t seem to have read the Constitution. Or, if he did, he must’ve either skipped the part about the free press or he didn’t understand it.
Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized the press in a speech recently and insisted that their headlines should not represent what is true about the war in Iran but should only say patriotic things.
Clearly, his time working for what purports to be a news organization did nothing for his understanding of the role of the press. The press does not exist to glorify the administration. The press exists to report on the administration. Reporters are not there to write patriotic statements, they are there to report on what is happening.
A free press is vital to the life of our democracy. Authoritarians demand patriotism in their “news”. Real Americans do not.
- Amy Weeks, Columbia Falls