Bozeman Build #68

Happy Solstice and welcome back to the Bozeman Build Report where we cover trade news and content around the Northern Rockies. Today we discovered fishing restrictions, grants, solar bill vetoed, flipping houses (wind), manufacturing reports, Bitterroot ski area for sale, summer solstice odd weather, new projects and more. On the Northern Rockies sections we wrote about a $260M transmission connection between North-South Dakota and Wyoming Power grids, public lands for sale, golf course watered by center pivots, and metering irrigation ditches.

Enjoy,

Daniel

Support the Bozeman Build by sponsoring an edition or by sharing your projects!

_{When and what is the Bozeman Build? The BB is a 1x/week free email newsletter delivered Monday mornings focused on Montana trade content and news. We are not a financial or building advisors.}

Montana and Bozeman Trade Pulse

Montana trade pulse

Fishing restrictions starting to take effect on some rivers. FWP's drought policy provides for angling restrictions when flows drop below critical levels for fish, when water quality is diminished or when maximum daily water temperatures reach at least 73 degrees for three consecutive days. Water temperatures of 77 degrees or more can be lethal to trout (FWP)

June 16 2025 Governor Greg Gianforte today announced the appointment of Marta Bertoglio as Director of the Montana Department of Commerce. (MT Commerce)

June 18 2025 21 Montana communities will share $5.9 million in grant funding for 31 historic preservation projects. (MT Commerce)

June 18, 2025 Gov. Greg Gianforte vetoed a bill to boost private community solar projects across Montana, arguing it gives “vast, unfettered discretion” to the Public Service Commission to determine solar credits. (Daily Montanan)

Jun 18, 2025 Monday's wind and hail storm wreaked havoc in Shepherd, flipping one family's trailer home upside down. (KTVQ)

6/19/2025 2025 Third Quarter Oil & Gas Lease Sale – Scoping Notice (DNRC)

June 19 2025 2025 recipients of the Opportunities in Rural Economies planning grant have been selected and will share almost $500,000 in funding. (MT Commerce)

June 20, 2025 - June 2025 Manufacturing News (Montana Manufacturing Extension Center)

Jun 20, 2025 A 2,000-acre ranch in the Bitterroot Mountains of Western Montana that was once so hopeful of being the base of a major new ski area that more than 20 ski runs were created has gone up for sale for $24 million. (Snow-Forecast)

MDT News

News released by the Montana Department of Transportation last week (MDT News)

• Final work on Great Falls Urban Pavement Preservation project

• Bigfork celebrates Bridge Street Bridge's iconic revival

• Montana Transportation Commission Meeting

• Proposed US 2 reconstruction near Zurich

• Proposed safety enhancements for Beckwith Street

Summer Solstice

Eureka Montana on June 22 received 16 hours, 11 minutes of daylight 5:36 am – 9:47 pm. Glacier received some snow on Saturday, here’s a screenshot from the Logan Pass Webcam (NPS/Glacier).

Bozeman trade pulse

Jun 17, 2025 New Subdivision “Meadow Bridge” Proposed on Bozeman’s South Side, designating 25 acres with 45 buildable residential lots, 1 designated park lot, and 3 open space lots (Bozeman Real Estate Group)

Jun 17, 2025 The Gallatin County Commission has adopted the Gallatin County Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Action Plan, a significant step toward reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries on county roadways. The plan aims to reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries by 50% by 2034. (KBZK)

Jun 19, 2025 The Freestone apartments are complete and are now leasing. These units start at $2,190 for a one bedroom and go up to $3,365 for a 2 bedroom. (Bozeman Real Estate Group)

Resurrection University Parish filed planning permits with the city to construct a rectory and addition to the Parish Student Center. (Project 25233)

William Martel

Born in Pervomais’k, Ukraine in 1939, he spent he spent his early childhood years on a walk about through war-torn Europe. The Martel family immigrated to America in 1952. Their first stop was Baker, MT and then settled in Bozeman, MT in 1956. The story of this magnificent journey was captured by author Mark Sullivan, in his bestselling book, The Last Green Valley. William founded Martel Construction in 1960 with his father Emil and was later joined by his brother, Walter, in 1967. (Obituary of Bill Martel)

Northern Rockies

June 17, 2025 Jackson Town Council on Monday approved the town’s largest ever hotel and condo complex, a massive 244,000-square-foot development by Mogul Capital. It’s a third smaller than the company’s original proposal and will take up a city block. (Cowboy State Daily)

Jun. 18, 2025 The insurer for some of Oregon’s largest ski resorts is leaving the state, saying it’s become too costly to do business here because of how state law handles liability when skiers suffer injuries. Eric Morgan, who manages claims for Safehold, told lawmakers in written testimony the company insures ski resorts in 37 states. Oregon, he said, is “an extreme outlier” that accounts for 20% of its nationwide losses up to $1 million and 50% of its losses between $1 million and $10 million. (Oregon Live)

June 19, 2025 The $260 million, 260-mile transmission expansion is approaching the finish line. Black Hills Energy Spending $540M To Connect North-South Wyoming Power Grids (Cowboy State Daily)

Public land for sale

People are throwing a fit online about the “sale of public lands”, it makes me squeamish as well, especially after looking at the ArcGIS map of “eligible land” both BLM and USFS for sale. The bill forces the arbitrary sale of at least 2 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in 11 Western states over the next five years, and it gives the secretaries of the interior and agriculture broad discretion to choose which places should be sold off. Not sure how this will shake out, many unknowns.

Watering golf course with center pivot

Caribou Highlands Golf Course outside Grace, Idaho irrigates their golf course with a center pivot and grows hay on the other half of the pivot circle. An Idaho farmer started up this course and mini RV resort in 1995. (Caribou Highlands)

Water meters on irrigation ditches

Irrigation district workers used to make flow estimates based on a water meter, they still do this however your starting to see more of this process become digitalized. Intermountain Environmental (IEI) of Logan Utah sells, installs and supports state of the art measurement and control instrumentation throughout the United States since 1993. I ran across a father son team from IEI wiring up some measurement tech on some ditches outside Grace, ID.

Thanks for reading, have a terrific week!

Daniel

bozemanbuild.com & blockbiome.com