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Tom Power - November 26, 2007
The Economic Impact of the Bitterroot Resort on Lolo Peak
The proposed four-seasons Bitterroot Resort on Lolo Peak outside of Missoula was back in the news recently with the release of an independent review of the Resort’s likely economic impact on Missoula and Ravalli Counties.
That report, done for the Missoula Area Economic Development Corporation and Chamber of Commerce, projected quantitative impacts that should have made local economic boosterists’ mouths water and hearts pound: Almost $2 billion dollars would be spent constructing the Resort over the next 20 years. Five thousand new jobs would be created when the “ripple” or “multiplier” effects are taken into account. Seventeen hundred new housing units would be constructed just at the Resort. Consumer spending would jump $185 million per year. Total additional income generated would be $142 million per year, $80 million of that in local payroll.
To get these spectacular economic “benefits,” “all” the public has to do is approve the conversion of the public wildlands around Lolo Peak to private commercial use by the Resort. To many, this may be one of those “offers” that is “too good to refuse.” If we refuse, a much smaller resort is likely to be built, having impacts less that a fifth the size of the proposed Resort; over 80 percent of the economic “benefits” would be lost.
This recent Resort economic impact study quantified the additional people, jobs, and economic activity that the greater Missoula area would get if the Resort were built as proposed. Those quantitative changes were simply assumed to be benefits. But what will current residents actually get from this growth?
It’s the jobs stupid…5,000 of them! But the unemployment rate in Missoula and Ravalli Counties are at historical lows with many businesses scrambling to find employees. In addition, the labor force participation rate is unusually high here. We are already at full employment. To fill 5,000 additional jobs, we will have to draw workers in from outside the area and, given the low unemployment rate statewide, probably from out-of-state. So the Resort will create jobs for strangers who currently live at unknown locations across the nation. That does not seem like a benefit for us here!
Ahhh….but the competition by the Resort and other businesses to obtain those 5,000 workers may drive wages up for all workers locally. That would be a real benefit to workers although existing businesses might be hurt. But that is not what happened over the last quarter century in the Missoula area. Between 1980 and 2005 Missoula and Ravalli Counties created almost 50,000 new jobs, almost 2,000 new jobs per year. During that same time period the average pay per job in Missoula fell from 94 percent of the national average to 75 percent. In Ravalli County it fell from 70 percent of average pay in the nation to 55 percent. As we experienced sustained job growth, average pay fell relative to the nation.
How could that be? Easy! As jobs were created, more and more people migrated into the area to fill the jobs and those in-migrants were willing to sacrifice pay relative to the national average to live here and enjoy the amenities of a relatively small mountain college town. In addition, many of the new jobs were less than full-time jobs, just as the jobs generated by the Resort will be.
In fact, as the independent impact study of the Resort reported, the Resort will largely create seasonal jobs in the retail trade and service sectors that are notorious for their low pay. The numbers on average pay provided in the Resort economic impact study are so low they probably are in error, but they provide a warning nonetheless about the quality of the jobs that would be generated.
Actually, when the Resort is put into the context of the growing economy of the greater Missoula area, the economic impacts are not all that impressive. Over the last 15 years, Missoula and Ravalli Counties combined added, on average, about 2,500 jobs per year. The US Bureau of the Census is projecting that the two counties will be adding 2,700 new residents each year over the next 25 years, almost 60 percent more than we added over the past 25 years. In that sense, the impact of the Resort is simply the equivalent of two years of the type of growth we have coped with in recent years. The projected impacts of the Resort are neither spectacular nor overwhelming, but they are likely to come on top of continued rapid growth of the sort we have been having, making it harder for us to plan and manage the damaging aspects of that growth to our communities and the surrounding natural landscape.
So why would we want to publicly subsidize this Resort by turning over a big chunk of Lolo Peak to commercial use? That clearly will increase the value of the private lands slated for development. But what will it do to the rest of us? Population growth and the accompanying sprawl out into our river valleys and the foothills will accelerate. That faster population growth will increase access and congestion problems on our public lands. It will add congestion to our highways and city streets. It will undermine more rapidly the small city character of Missoula and the rural character of the Bitterroot Valley. It will threaten Missoula with becoming a “resort community” with all of the negative effects that afflict any community that surrenders itself to ever increasing hoards of transients. We are now primarily a residential community, trade center, and college town. We also have about all of the growth that we can handle.
Why, in that setting, would we want to sacrifice the natural landscape feature that towers over our community and defines us as a mountain town? To do so would be to inflict gratuitous damage on the very landscape that attracted and held us here, harming a community resource while providing no community benefits. That is a lose-lose proposition.
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| Northwest Area Foundation Grant Funds News Reports on Poverty Issues |
Through 2008 the Montana Public Radio News Department will be presenting regular feature stories about issues of poverty in Montana. This project is made possible with a two-year, $78,500 grant from the Northwest Area Foundation. The funding will enable Montana Public Radio to add a half-time reporter to its staff for the duration of the project, as well as cover costs for field recording equipment and travel throughout western and central Montana. News Director Sally Mauk says, “I’m excited about the project and the opportunity to get our news staff out to many Montana communities to report on such an important and timely topic.”
The Northwest Area Foundation approached Montana Public Radio with this opportunity for funding coverage of poverty issues, after beginning successful projects with Minnesota Public Radio and Seattle’s KUOW. The Northwest Area Foundation’s mission is to help communities in an eight-state region (including Montana) reduce poverty. www.nwaf.org.
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