text: Blue Mountain runaround | News | Missoula Independent Home
  Just southwest of Reserve Street, Missoula proper collides with county living. Tract housing yields to homes with horse pastures, owners struggling to hold on to the country flavor that defines the area. As Missoula's doughy middle continues to press at its belt, urbanizing regions of the county that have traditionally provided rural atmosphere and room to run, federal and county officials are planning how to move future suburban traffic around.
  Though residents of Miller Creek seem to be excited by the new bridge, a group of Blue Mountain Road residents feel certain that the move will funnel more traffic their way, and they're worried that the connection could create a critical intersection for a future western bypass around the clogged streets of Missoula proper. Two county residents, Blue Mountain's Helen Orendain and Frenchtown's Reed Smith, filed complaints in mid-December with the Environmental Protection Agency over the process of a draft environmental impact statement being developed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and a consulting company out of Denver named Carter & Burgess. Orendain and Smith feel they've been left out of the process, and that the scope of the DEIS, due this spring, won't address the possible impacts to Blue Mountain Road and the nearby recreation area if the bridge-and-overpass proposal is implemented.
  "Requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are not being followed with respect to public notice, public participation and scoping," Smith said in his complaint to the EPA. "The EIS is being focused on a small project area, Miller Creek and Linda Vista subdivisions, when the intersection would, without a doubt, become a major element of the transportation system for the entire City of Missoula and surrounding area."
  "There will be a public hearing that takes place where people can have their statements become part of the public record," Genzlinger said. "That'll be done once the draft environmental impact statement is out on the street and people get a chance to digest it." Carter & Burgess consultant Jeanette Lostracco, the deputy project manager on the DEIS, said that she hasn't been hired to look at a western bypass, but she is examining likely impacts to Blue Mountain Road if the Miller Creek Bridge is put in.