Consider a New Approach for Seeley Lake's Sewer

SEELEY LAKE - Now that the badly-planned central sewage treatment system is proving to be unaffordable, it’s time for city mothers and fathers to step back and consider a new approach for Seeley Lake.

In the world of sewage treatment there are three steps: collection, treatment and disposal. The most expensive aspect is generally the collection...that often represents two thirds of the cost of building a treatment system and easily 90 percent of the subsequent operation and maintenance, as the local sewer board is finding out.

There are new technologies which involve in-tank treatments that reduce and even eliminate the need for an expensive collection system. City fathers and mothers need to push the Missoula County Health Department to study and embrace the new technologies and quit being the bully it has been for the past quarter century. The Missoula County Health Department, with its gestapo-like management style, has single handedly dictated economic growth in rural Missoula County. It’s time for the local rural communities to band together and say “enough.”

We could start by demanding change from the current county commission candidates. A campaign promise in the heat of election battle can go a long way toward fomenting change. And we know most politicians will say anything to get elected.