Hold Health Department accountable

SEELEY LAKE - Voters unanimously defeated a $35-million albatross sewer proposal but the message seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Now the Sewer Board wants to charge resident homeowners $250/year for each parcel in the district. Many residences sit on two, even three parcels so the owners will be paying $500-750 a year for what? Stuff the County Health Department should have been doing from the get-go

If the Missoula County Health Department would do its job we wouldn’t even NEED a Sewer District Board. The Board has FAILED to properly monitor groundwater quality in our area. It has also FAILED to establish watershed-wide water quality districts in the County to accurately monitor groundwater pollution across the entire county. It has FAILED to recognize we are a rural county (the only incorporated town is Missoula) and only state- of- the- art, affordable septic technologies will work. It has FAILED to review and revise housing density and septic regulations to incentivize residential construction. It has failed to dye-test creek, river and lake front properties to determine whether they are polluting our waterways. It has SUCCEEDED ...finally... in making housing less affordable through its ineptitude.

The Sewer District Board should be disbanded. It is a non-essential business at this point. The Missoula County Health Department should be tasked with doing its job and it should be held accountable for its failures. Unfortunately, we don’t get to vote on who runs that department...but we certainly get to vote on the County Commissioners who sit on the Health Board. They should be held accountable for the Health Boards’ many failures.

Please remember BOTH the Missoula County Health Department AND the Missoula County Commissioners were ENTHUSIASTIC supporters of the failed sewer proposal.