BIG SKY, Mont. – For years, this posh resort community of 2,500 people leaked partially treated sewage into the pristine waters of the Gallatin River, the blue-ribbon trout stream in Robert Redford’s movie, A River Runs Through It. In 1991 alone, an estimated 47 million gallons of effluent seeped illegally into the groundwater that feeds […]
Joe Kolman
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Citizens tame growth – their way
LIVINGSTON, Mont. – Paradise is a place with a population of one, says Charles Rahn. A rancher whose family has owned a 3,300-acre operation southeast of town for 50 years, Rahn says, “It’s only paradise for the first person who shows up.” So last year, Rahn led a successful petition drive to form a 66,000-acre […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Building a $100 million paradise in Montana’s Paradise Valley
EMIGRANT, Mont. – In the early 1900s, when Yellowstone Park Superintendent Horace Albright looked upon Paradise Valley, his neighbor to the north, he proclaimed: “If that area were in any other state, it would have been a national park.” Framed by mountains and split down the middle by the Yellowstone River, Paradise Valley has always […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
No fences make bad neighbors in Montana
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Warren McMillan steers his Chevy Blazer past a wooden sign that advertises residential lots for sale, many of them 20 acres in size with stunning views of the eastern face of the Bridger Mountains. He is wearing a straw cowboy hat, black cowboy boots, cowboy-cut Levis and a cowboy shirt. He passes […]