In the Flathead

Killing the Cat, Kalispell Debates Sewer Expansion, and Population Goes Up, Up, Up

By Kate Downen, 4-26-06

A young mountain lion was ‘removed from the population’ after he raided a goat and llama corral near Bigfork, killing a goat and attempting to drag it though a woven wire fence on Monday. While mountain lion problems are rare in the area, a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks specialist reports that 80% of lion conflicts result when young cats are ‘kicked off’ by their mothers and forced to find new roaming territory in lower lands.

Up northward, as more and more subdivisions want a piece of the glamour that is Sewer Hookup, the Kalispell City Council is scheduled to vote next Monday on a sewer expansion that would nearly double the city’s sewer capacity by 2008. The expansion would create treatment capacity for up to 6 million gallons a day. The current plant can treat 3.1 million gallons a day, and in 2004 its capacity was 2.9 million gallons. The project would cost around $12.5 million, $5 million of which has been set aside by Kalispell, and the rest which would be paid by a bond sale. City officials are keeping possible rising construction costs in mind as they consider the expansion.

Meanwhile, toiling away for demographic justice in a mysterious office far away, the Census and Economic Information Center has come out with new Montana population estimates that, in the Flathead, exceed earlier projections (surprised? Didn’t think so). Montana’s population for July 2005 was estimated at 935,670 and Flathead County’s was up to 83,172, a 3.7% increase for the state and an insane 11.7% increase for Flathead County since the 2000 Census.

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