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PNS - Thursday, April 24, 2025 - Migration to rural America increased for the fourth year, technological gaps handicap rural hospitals and erode patient care, and doctors are needed to keep the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians healthy and align with spiritual principles.
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PNS - Thursday, April 24, 2025 - Amid market blowback, President Trump says China tariffs will likely be cut. Border Czar Tom Homan alleges Kilmar Abrego Garcia received due process, and the administration takes a tough line on people without housing.
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PNS - Thursday, April 24, 2025 - Trump slams Zelensky for refusing to recognize Russian control of Crimea; TN educators warn against dismantling U.S. Dept. of Education; NJ improves school-based mental health policies; ND follows up with new aid to keep rural grocery stores open.
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Big Sky Connection - The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has denied a petition on Big Hole River contaminants based on a state law the federal Environmental Protection Agency disapproved of. Conservation groups are asking the EPA to weigh in. Comments by Guy Alsentzer [ALL-sense-er], executive director, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper.
Kathleen Shannon
April 23, 2025 - Montana officials have denied a petition asking the state to designate the Big Hole River as "impaired" by pollution.
Two conservation groups collected data over five years and found levels of nutrients in the Big Hole River exceeded thresholds, in some parts, by twofold or threefold, which could harm aquatic habitats, contaminate drinking water and affect fishing and other tourism business. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality said the petitioners used the wrong metrics.
Guy Alsentzer, executive director of the conservation group Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, said it is an example of politics "undermining good science."
"At minimum, we feel that the state owes us a written explanation, with some detail, about exactly why it believes it can deny a petition that has clearly satisfied the scientific basis for developing a pollution cleanup plan," Alsentzer explained.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality argued the petition's data does not abide by a state law passed in 2021. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, however, officially disapproved of the law.
Alsentzer has requested the EPA weigh in, adding once high nutrient levels are proven, it is up to the Department of Environmental Quality to determine the causes.
"In the case of most Montana rivers, it's going to be a combination of human land use patterns," Alsentzer noted. "Sometimes it's subdivisions, sometimes it's septics, sometimes it's a municipality and sometimes it's farm fields or big cattle feeding lots."
Alsentzer stressed keeping waterways healthy is both "good common sense" and "good economics." According to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Beaverhead County's hunting and angling economy adds an estimated $74 million to area households annually and $167 million to businesses and organizations.
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