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Hello and welcome to News Now. I'm your host, Taylor Inman. We're going over this week's biggest headlines and what's coming up for the Flathead Valley. I just want to start today's show off by saying thank you to everyone who watches or listens to News Now or any of our podcasts here at the Daily Interlake. We've been added about a year now.

It's a growing part of our newspaper and an exciting way to engage with our audience. Starting this week, we are going to try splitting up the show into two parts. There will be a separate video for my interview with folks in the community, and another video for me reading the news from the past week. So let's jump into what's been happening in northwest Montana.

Airplanes aren't the only things going up and down at Glacier Park International Airport. It's now home to Flathead County south side of escalators. The moving staircases are just one of a set of improvements to the transit hub that airport officials and local dignitaries celebrated at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday for what is known as phase one A of an overall $163 million terminal expansion project.

Passengers on Wednesday were expected to begin using the newly finished gates three, with jet bridges connecting travelers to a waiting aircraft. Airport director Rob Gronkowski said seven years and hundreds of hours of work have gone into the effort. The undertaking, propelled by ever growing numbers of travelers passing through the Flathead Valley and begun in earnest in 2021, will see the number of gates grow to seven.

The expanded terminal building also boasts a restaurant, the Goat Hunt Saloon, the Flathead Mercantile Shop, and a concession stand. Rakowski called the project the highlight of his career, crediting the airport employees, contractors and everyone else involved in the undertaking with performing the lion's share of the work. With the core of the terminal project complete, Rakowski said workers would begin tearing into the older adjacent terminal in mid-March.

The airport is still lining up funding for the second phase of the project, but Rakowski said there remains federal money available for the home stretch. A majority of the funding, at $1.5 million, will go towards furthering bison reintroduction on the east side of Glacier National Park, according to a release. Glacier park's climate related projects are an investment of overall $195 million from the Inflation Reduction Act, announced last week, to prepare parks across the country to be resilient to climate change.

Park officials said in the release that these investments are, quote, incredibly timely as healthy ecosystems, wildlife and native plant habitats and cultural resources are threatened by climate change and many other environmental challenges. President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August of 2022. It has been described as the most expensive piece of climate legislation in U.S. history.

Bison reintroduction through the Iny initiative is a Blackfeet led effort to bring bison back to the landscape, and the herd is expected to freely roam onto National Park Service lands. Funds will be used to coordinate landscape level, ecosystem function, and to conduct connectivity studies to gain an understanding of how ungulates like elk and deer forage and habitat in the absence of bison.

This project also includes an attempt to obtain a population estimate through pellet analysis. Glacier was also awarded over $200,000 as part of a multi park project to survey the cultural resources in the Intermountain West, high elevation areas impacted by climate change. There are more than 11,000 years of human occupation, a Native American cultural heritage documented in Glacier National Park.

These resources are experiencing loss to climate change driven impacts such as wildfire and melting ice, according to the release. Park staff plans to target the most critically affected and threatened nonrenewable cultural resources, such as melted ice, reveals organic materials or eroded cut bangs impacting ancient campsites. Two areas of research include sites associated with melting stable ice and sites on high elevation landforms and non ice context like mountain passes and peaks.

Glacier received $270,000 to continue to work on restoring threatened whitebark pine and to implement the National Whitebark Pine Restoration Strategy. The park project builds on 20 years of work at Glacier and within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The park includes working with partners and tribes to plant blister resistant seeds and seedlings, identify risk resistant trees, and monitor seedling survival, and identify climate refugia.

In the release, park officials said. The announcement of funding through the act is, quote, a promise to future generations that the Park Service will continue to address the impacts of the climate crisis, including intensifying drought, wildfires, flooding and legacy pollution in national parks and other public lands. A seasonal closure began March 1st along a large portion of the north shore of Flathead Lake, between Bigfork and Summers, to support migrating and nesting birds, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Flathead Waterfowl Protection Area spent seven miles of shoreline along the north end of Flathead Lake.

This federal property closes to the public annually March 1st through July 15th to reduce human disturbances during the breeding, nesting, and brood rearing period. This closure includes the open beaches along the shoreline of the shoreline, and off shore. Habitats are critical for migrating birds to rest and nest. The north shore of Flathead Lake supports an abundant variety of birds year round, particularly during migration when tens of thousands of mixed waterfowl species rely on the area's grassland, wetland, and shrubland habitats.

More than 200 bird species use the area. The National Audubon Society has declared the North Shore an Important Bird Area. The organization's official designation for places that provide essential habitat for bird populations. Human disturbance, including walking near birds or nesting areas, or letting dogs run off leash, can cause serious harm during these vulnerable periods. These types of human activities disrupt breeding and non breeding birds by interrupting vital activities such as feeding and resting.

Disturbances can harm nests. Lead birds to abandon active nest or prevent them from establishing a nest. Public access to the North Shore Beach remains open at Montana. Fish, Wildlife and parks. Summers Beach State Park and Osprey View property along Holt Drive near Bigfork. Parking is limited along Holt Drive. Access at both sites is restricted to state land and the section of beach that is state land.

Beach closures remain in effect starting at the boundary of the federal WPA. All dogs must be on a leash. Read these full stories. A daily interlake.com. Let's see what's coming up for events. Remember, you can find art classes, live music or anything. Community related by going to daily interlake.com/events and checking out our events calendar. Irish acoustic group Luminosa is performing at the War College College Center on March 10th.

Formed in 1997, Luminosa has long been one of contemporary Irish music's leading voices. Catch their captivating performance starting at 7 p.m.. The Friends of Imagine if Library's book club meets the second Tuesday of each month at 3 p.m. in the meeting room at the Imagine If Kalispell branch on March 12th. They'll be discussing the boys in the boat.

Nine Americans in their epic quest for gold. The 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. Their April book will be Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer on March 13th. Lake County will be hosting its 2024 Spring Job Fair. Anyone interested in exploring job opportunities in Lake County is welcome to join at the Red line and in Suites in Polson on Wednesday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m..

Thanks for joining us. News now is a podcast from the Daily Interlake. We're proud to be the largest independent newsroom in Montana and the oldest paper in the Valley. Consider becoming a subscriber to support our work. Call circulation at (406) 755-7018, or go to the subscribe tab in the top right corner of our website. And if you haven't already, subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss an episode of The Pod.

Everybody stay safe and have a great week!

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