Meeting to examine Glacier influence

KALISPELL – A quick glance through the Flathead Valley phone book is evidence enough of Glacier
National Park’s influence, economic and otherwise, on northwestern Montana.

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

In those white pages you will find everything from Glacier Anesthesiology and Pain Management to
Glacier Woodworking Inc.

In between are some 175 or so phone numbers, scattered throughout the alphabet and all sharing the
borrowed name "Glacier."

There’s Glacier Bank and Glacier Bible Camp and Glacier Bio Energetics; Glacier Film and Glacier
Fishing Charters and the Glacier Flying School. Don’t forget Glacier Lanes and Glacier Line Logging;
Glacier Paving and Glacier Pines RV Park. There’s Glacier Vacations for those who need a break,
and Glacier Valley Brandy for those who need a drink, and, of course, Glacier View Church, for those
who need eternity with a vista.

"You really can’t measure the mark Glacier Park has made on this community," said Carol Edgar.
"No matter who you are on the political spectrum, you’re impacted by Glacier Park. This whole
economy is tied to the park."

Which is exactly why Edgar, executive director of the Flathead Convention and Visitor Bureau, has
hitched her organization to a new nationwide wagon pulling for increased funding in America’s
national parks.

Many of her members, she said, are hotel and motel owners, mom-and-pop merchants who don’t
necessarily have the cash flow to go around donating to federal agencies.

"But it’s business, plain and simple," said Edgar.

If a quarter of Montana’s tourists list Glacier National Park as the reason they came to the Big Sky,
she said, and if Glacier National Park isn’t all that it could be due to funding cuts, then her
businesses, in turn, are not making as much on the bottom line as they could be.

Tuesday, Edgar joins staffers from Americans for National Parks, a new nonpartisan organization
dedicated to increasing funding in the nation’s parks, during a "town meeting" to discuss the park, its
budget, its role as an economic engine powering the region, and the ways in which an investment in
Glacier is, in some ways, an investment in the entire community.

During the meeting, keynote speaker Larry Swanson will present preliminary findings from his
ongoing study into the economic influence of Glacier Park on northwestern Montana. Swanson is a
regional economist at the Missoula-based Center for the Rocky Mountain West.

"There’s absolutely no question that Glacier really is a major driver of the Flathead economy," said
Steve Thompson, who represents the National Parks Conservation Association and will join Edgar at
Tuesday’s meeting.

"Glacier’s impact is enormous," he said, "and now we’re asking the community to return the favor – to
help supply some support to Glacier. It’s a two-way street."

As is the scenic but aging Going-to-the-Sun Road, which remains the focus of technical studies
aimed at determining how best to reconstruct the crumbling highway. The estimated cost of repairing
Glacier’s showcase route hovers well above $125 million, but no one is quite sure where the money
will come from.

In fact, over the years Glacier’s budget has received just one-third of the money needed to complete
even basic maintenance on the road, a shortfall that is in large part to blame for the road’s current
condition.

"Now, the time has come when we’re paying the piper," Thompson said. "It’s going to take some
heavy lifting from a broad coalition of people."

That broad coalition may be gathering under the umbrella of Americans for National Parks.

The newly formed group includes conservationists such as Thompson, tourism promoters such as
Edgar, chambers of commerce, politicians from the left, politicians from the right and just about
everyone else you can imagine.

Previously, the coalition called on Congress and President George W. Bush to kick in an additional
$280 million toward the 2003 operating budgets of the nation’s parks. That extra cash, Dave Dittloff
said, would put the administration back on track to meet Bush’s long-term promises.

While on the campaign trail, then-candidate Bush promised nearly $5 billion over five years to shore
up ailing park budgets. But then came Sept. 11, a war on terrorism, a nationwide tax cut and a
downturn in America’s economy.

Dittloff, Montana field director for Americans for National Parks, said he recognizes that the $5 billion
is now out of reach, but he and his diverse coalition are looking for anything they can get. The
benefits, he said, will be not only to the parks, but also to the communities that rely upon the parks.

By focusing strictly on funding and not upon controversial issues such as wolves and bears and
wildfires, he said, his group has been able to bring a broad base of support into the fold, including
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and his counterpart Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

"Senator Burns is slowly coming around," Dittloff said, "and Senator Baucus is fully on board."

Burns is ranking Republican on the Senate Interior Appropriations Committee, and Baucus chairs the
powerful Senate Finance Committee, giving both men considerable clout to potentially help Dittloff’s
cause.

In fact, Dittloff said, Baucus already is co-sponsoring a call for an additional $280 million for this
year’s national park budget.

That money, if granted, will go a long way toward keeping even, if not getting ahead of the ball, Dittloff
said. For years, the National Park Service has lost ground on budgets — as evidenced by the 32
percent decline in Yellowstone National Park’s seasonal ranger force between 1987 and 1996 — and
any increases now will be used to work back toward the status quo of decades gone by, he said.

That work is essential, however, if parks such as Glacier are expected to remain viable in the long
run, he said. Thompson agrees, and insists that additional funding for basic maintenance will be
necessary if Glacier’s managers are not to be back at the drawing table, trying to figure out how to
rebuild the Sun Road yet again in 60 years.

It doesn’t make sense, he said, to spend big bucks on a repair only to let that work crumble through
continued budgetary inattention.

"I think we can pretty easily show how important Glacier Park is to this entire economy," Thompson
said, "and then I think we can make the case that an investment in the park is an investment in the
entire Flathead Valley."

If you’re interested

Americans for National Parks and Carol Edgar of the Flathead Convention and Visitor Bureau will hold
a town meeting on Glacier National Park’s economic contribution to the region from 7 to 9 p.m.
Tuesday at the Outlaw Inn in Kalispell.

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