Thanks for donation to Community Kitchen

To the editor,

Gary Sparr and Glacier Bank generously donated a pig from the county fair to Columbia Falls Community Kitchen. It will go far to feed many needy in our community. Thank you ever so much, Gary and Glacier Bank.

CFCK will be serving free meals starting Thursday, Sept. 27 through Sunday, Sept. 30 in the basement of St. Richards Catholic Church, starting at 6 p.m. Please join us for some delicious pork dinners.

Thank you ever so much in advance of supporting CFCK.

Marian Ficek

Columbia Falls Community Kitchen

Remedying long-term fire problems

Jack Therrien blames all of our forest fires in the past few years on "environmentalists." Who are these "environmentalists" anyway? Logically, the word used to apply to people who were concerned in a rational way about their surroundings; so that should include everybody, but unfortunately doesn't. Now the word is sadly just a meaningless, derogatory catch-all for whoever you want to blame for whatever ails you!

Having said that, the major factual reasons for the numerous intense forest fires of late are twofold. First, there has been 70-plus years of vigorous fire suppression, allowing our forests to accumulate huge fuel-loads of dead and dying trees. This was seemingly a very reasonable policy emphasizing safety and the conservation of our timber resources, but as scientists developed a better understanding of the dynamic ecology of forests and the important role that fire plays in forest health, it became clear that scientifically, fire suppression is only acceptable in cases of risk to human life and developed areas. But we are now left with our forests having fuel levels so high that every fire threatens to be catastrophic. Thus, most of our forests are far overdue in needing to burn, so we are experiencing many more fires involving much larger acreage than if we had employed a policy of minimal fire suppression over the past several decades.

The second major factor in the current intense forest fire scenario is seven to eight years of drought, which has dried out the living forest as well as the accumulated fuels, increasing tremendously the efficiency of forest fire starts as well as their overall activity. Scientists tell us that global warming is playing a big role in our continuing drought situation, hence forest fire conditions: Compared with 50 years ago, on average, there is a much smaller snowpack in the winter, spring snowmelt and runoff is a month earlier, spring rains are much reduced and so, by late summer, our forest lands are hotter and much drier. We are now caught between a rock and a hard place. Things would have been better if national policy had been driven more directly and promptly by science, rather than emotion and self-serving politics. Listening to fire and forest ecologists, as well as climate scientists, could have given us perhaps a 20- to 30-year head start in beginning to remedy these serious long-term problems. Better late than never!

Don Kiehn is an East Glacier resident.

Proud to celebrate Constitution Week

This week we celebrate one of the single most important events in America's history, the signing of our Constitution. For more than 200 years, this document has been the tool that has shaped our federal government. As a member of Congress, it's a great privilege to be able to stand up every two years and swear to uphold its ideals.

This week is Constitution Week, which is a great opportunity to sit down with your kids and tell them about this important document and the rights we have as Americans. These are lessons that should never be forgotten and it's important we continue to pass them from generation to generation.However, it's also critical these lessons extend beyond merely one week per year. America's unique dedication to freedom was built through a strong, written guide and that guide is as important as ever today.

The framers of our Constitution were able to create a document that has withstood the test of time, and their shadow continues to be a constant presence in the work I'm doing in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Montana. This week, let us all pay homage and remember those who first sacrificed in order to give us what we have today.

Denny Rehberg is Montana's Republican Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.