Happy Birthday Beaver Dam School
Friday, October 17, 2014
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Work being done on East Stewart Street. Still moving contaminated dirt from one place to another. Makes me laugh... Gonna be purty though..
I can see these things ending up in the Pacific Ocean during a big spring runoff. Sort of look like piles of you know what....
New recreation area in Opportunity
"LAKE TREFZGER" (swamp)
Bring the jet skis down folks.. Lets have some fun...
Awww, nice babbling brook. We'll see how babbling it is when Mother Nature decides she likes it the way she had it and sends a big spring runoff down the river..
Silver Bow creek?
Silver Bow Creek? Hmm thought the Clark Fork didn't start until below the ponds? Looks like it is the Clark Fork when it goes through Opportunity...
The so called engineers are calling this mtn of Sand, top soil.. Hope they plant something besides weeds this time...
Another Cover Up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
The truth about Beaver Dam Park
Well its election year and you know how that goes with
politicians, they try to make themselves look like the best candidate for the
job. I have seen this, this weekend at the ribbon cutting ceremony at the new
park in Opportunity. Our shoe in CEO from Deer Lodge County stated she has been
trying to get this park built for the last twenty years and was very happy to
be part of it. This is not true, just a few years ago, the county and Connie
Daniels where dead set against building a park in Opportunity. They gave the
excuse of who is going to maintain the park, what are we going to do with the
old school building, the ground may be contaminated, we don’t have enough money
to buy the land and a variety of other reasons why this park should not be
built. At that time, the Anaconda school district was trying to decide the fate
of the old school in Opportunity. They decided to sell the property to the
highest bidder. The Opportunity Citizens Protection Association, which was
formed, to help the community understand the superfund and to inform the
citizens of Opportunity, of what was happening in and around their community as
far as superfund goes, took the initiative to try to stop the sale of the old
school grounds. They even went as far as to put up a 1000.00 bid on the
property, to try to save the last open space in Opportunity where people could
go to relax and have a picnic or whatever they choose. OCPA tried to convince
the Anaconda School board, that it would be for the best interest of the
county, to turn the property into a nice park for the citizens of Opportunity
and Deer Lodge County. The school board
wanted OCPA to present a plan for building a park on the property and if the
plan looked good enough, they would give it to the people of Deer Lodge County
to build a park. This was a step in the right direction but funding was going
to be a problem. Deer Lodge County was not going to spend a dime on the
project, so they told us if we wanted a park, we would have to come up with
funding to build it. OCPA negotiated with Atlantic Richfield Company to see if
they could help fund the project. Arco
told the members of the Opportunity Citizens Protection Association, that they
would donate 50 thousand towards the project. This money was tied up while ARCO
and Deer Lodge County negotiated a land swap.
Finally the money was released for the park but to this day, OCPA does
not know where the money was spent. Deer Lodge County told us that the 50G
would be used to buy the land. It wasn’t until the ribbon cutting ceremony,
that OCPA found out that the County, got
the whole thing for 10 dollars. Where did the other 49,990.00 go? Shortly after
this, Max Baucus and the Baucus fund, along with Montana Department of
Transportation, set aside 5 million dollars for parks and trails in the
Milltown area. . . The Missoula County Commissioners decided that since
Opportunity was going to receive the Tailings from Milltown, that they should
be entitled to half of the 5 million to build the park in Opportunity. This fund was a matching funds type of grant
that would require $1.00 to be sent in for every $7.00 received. So the
50 grand ARCO donated to the park, could be turned into 350,000.00 by matching
the money through the Baucus fund. Connie Daniels and Dan Villa came to one of
OCPA’s meetings and informed us of the news from Missoula County and told us
that 2.5 million would be used on our park. After the meeting, Dan Villa
informed us that we better have a bunch of bake sales if we planned on getting
any of the money. As it turned out, ALL of the trails and roadways built in the
ARCO waste repository behind Opportunity could be used for matching funds for
the project. Now that there was money involved, Deer Lodge County jumped right
on the band wagon. So instead of 2.5 million
dollars to be spent on the Opportunity Park, 1.2 million was spent. The county
told us that the rest of the money would go towards trails in and around
Anaconda. Opportunity was cheated out of over half the money allotted for our
Park. The park that was built is first class and everyone loves it but that
isn’t the point I am trying to make. We could have even had a nicer park if all
of the money like the 50 grand and 2.5 million would have been spent on the
park. It’s sad that things like this happen but we all need to fight for what
we believe in and not let a few politicians get in the way. Thank you Missoula
County and Senator Baucus, for the great Park in Opportunity, without you, it
would not have happened…
Friday, April 13, 2012
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