11 Most Endangered
Great Falls Portage
Year Listed: 2008
Location: Great Falls, Montana
Current Status: Endangered
Threat: Development
Great Falls Portage
Great Falls. Photo by National Park Service.
Great Falls Portage
Stunning landscape in Great Falls. Photo by Montana Preservation Alliance.
Great Falls Portage
The interpretive sign at Great Falls Portage, located in the heart of the landmark in Great Falls, Montana. Photo by Great Falls-Cascade County Historic Preservation Office Learn More
The Great Falls Portage, one of the best preserved and most accessible landscapes along the Lewis and Clark Trail, is a windblown, undeveloped rural area surrounded by mountains and a panorama of blue Montana skies. It marks the location where, in 1805, the historic expedition faced its most challenging obstacle —the 18-mile, 31-day portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri River. Today, the construction of a massive coal-fired power plant—the seventh in the state—in the site's front yard threatens to irreparably damage the cultural and visual landscape of this National Historic Landmark.
What you can do
- Petition the City of Great Falls to work with property owners to secure conservation easements on land inside the Great Falls Portage National Historic Landmark.
- Contact Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative, Inc., to oppose the project because of its impact on the Great Falls Portage National Historic Landmark.
- Send a letter to the editor of the Great Falls Tribune opposing the project.
- Help save the Great Falls Portage and other endangered places – donate to the 11 for the 11 Most Challenge.
The Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative, Inc. is currently seeking financial support to build the Highwood Generating station, a $720 million coal-fired power plant that would produce 250-megawatts of power and serve up to 120,000 rural electricity customers from Great Portage to Billings. Construction plans include a large 435-acre power generation facility with a 400-foot smoke stack, four 262-foot wind turbines, secondary buildings, access roads, transmission lines, lights and miles of railroad tracks. Despite receiving 1,500 letters of protest from concerned citizens, the Cascade County Commission voted in 2006, and, most recently, in January 2008, to rezone this agricultural land to allow for industrial activity.
To date, the Cooperative's proposal for mitigation includes minor measures such as painting the power plant green and planting trees to mask the industrial property. In an effort to compensate for the destruction of the resource, the company has also offered local Lewis and Clark groups funds for interpretative programming
National, statewide and local groups have spent years working to protect the site from industrial development. In 2004, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, along with the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Conservation Fund, Pennsylvania Power and Light (Montana) and RK Mellon Foundation established a conservation easement on 2,145 acres that would protect the viewshed and integrity of the Portage site. In addition, citizens of Great Falls and the surrounding region, including 90 percent of the landowners closest to the proposed plant, have sent scores of letters to the Cascade County Commission opposing the project and the damage it will inflict on the environment. Although preservation advocates and the National Park Service have called for a broader search to determine a more appropriate location for the facility, or a clean energy alternative that eliminates the need for this plant, such viable proposals have yet to be developed.
"What makes the threat to the Great Falls Portage especially troubling is that it could pave the way for future development on this as well as other culturally significant sites across the country with industrial parks, transmission lines and manufacturing businesses that would further compromise these unique historic landscapes," says Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "Such development needs to proceed cautiously and with sensitivity toward both the historic fabric of this place and others like it as well as the preservation of the environment."
Coal-fired power plants are one of the most significant sources of carbon dioxide in the United States. They are responsible for 88 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 99 percent of mercury emissions generated by the entire U.S. electricity industry. It is estimated that the new plant near Great Falls would emit 1.7 million tons of greenhouse gases annually. This is the same amount of carbon emitted from the combustion of more than 175 million gallons of gas—or roughly the same amount of greenhouse gases emitted by 325,000 vehicles a year.
For Press inquiries: http://press.nationaltrust.org/
