Infrastructure

Yellowstone National Park announced Tuesday a handful of big plans to chip away at its nearly $600 million maintenance backlog.

The Montana Department of Transportation will renovate a historic bridge that connects the north and south sides of Gardiner, starting September 03. Drivers should expect delays.

Fourteen Montana communities will receive a total of $6.5 million of federal funds this year for local infrastructure, housing development and job creation projects. That’s almost a million dollars over last year.

Vice President Mike Pence visited Yellowstone National Park Thursday to discuss the Park Service’s backlog of maintenance projects. Pence says the Trump administration is committed to conservation and improving national parks infrastructure.

A new economic profile report about Big Sky highlights one of the fastest population growth trends in the state and some of the struggles that come with it. Big Sky’s population has grown 21 percent over the last five years to almost 3,000 residents, according to a new economic profile from Bridge Economic Development released this week.

Montana’s only veterinary diagnostic laboratory plays a big role identifying diseases in livestock and pets. But their current facility in Bozeman is aging and has limited space. With a recently-hired, full-time director, the lab hopes to construct a new building to better serve the needs of animal owners and veterinarians across the state.

 President Donald Trump and a dozen Democratic lawmakers have agreed to work together on a $2 trillion dollar infrastructure package. But they put off for later the difficult questions of how to pay for it.

Laurel and Big Timber are among the communities across Montana struggling to provide clean drinking water, deal with storm runoff, and maintain roads and bridges.  They are also scratching their heads over how to pay for these multi-million dollar projects with their small tax or rate base.

The head of the National Governors Associations says there’s bi-partisan consensus that infrastructure has been neglected. Scott Pattison says infrastructure includes everything from broadband to road and bridges.  

“We've neglected it long enough that we were looking at hundreds of billions of needs. You can't just magically come up with the money for that,” said Pattison.

Supporters of a bonding bill are working to turn 4 “no” votes to “yes” in order to advance Senate Bill 367 out of the House of Representatives.  Bonding is the last major issue remaining before the 2017 Montana Legislature.

Representatives gave Senate Bill 367 a preliminary 63-to-37 vote last evening. However, the bill will need at least 67 votes on its 3rd and final reading to advance it back to the Senate because of changes to the bill. Passage is expected to expedite the conclusion of the 2017 Legislative session.