County commission looking to fill job and committee created by SB315

The Lincoln County Commission is moving forward on hiring an individual and assembling an oversight committee as called for in Senate Bill 315.

“The key thing is we’ve got to get the process started,” said Commissioner Mark Peck at the commission’s Aug. 2 meeting. “We’ve got to get the committee lined up because it needs to meet by the end of October” in the first of its required quarterly meetings.

State Sen. Chas Vincent sponsored the bill, which appropriates $600,000 per year for 10 years to Montana’s operation and management of Libby’s Superfund site. The bill passed with a vote of 50-0 in the Montana Senate earlier this year.

The bill also creates a liaison that will be picked by Gov. Steve Bullock from a list of three people the Lincoln County Commission chooses from a pool of applicants.

This person will be dedicated to coordinating among the county, state and federal government and will report to a five-person oversight committee comprised of a Montana Department of Environmental Quality representative, a Lincoln County commissioner, a Lincoln County citizen and two local legislators — a representative and a senator.

At the Aug. 2 commission meeting, Peck noted he and Nick Raines of the Lincoln County Asbestos Resource Program recently had “a really good meeting” with Montana Department of Environmental Quality that left them feeling “we’re all on the same page.”

Peck said the county was waiting for the department to send a job description for the liaison. He said the person would be an employee of the state and that the position would “take a unique person to fill.”

“The DEQ agreed that we don’t need the Albert Einstein of asbestos,” Peck told the commission. “We need a person with the political savvy to basically tell both the DEQ and the county when they’re full of crap.”

The liaison will work out of Libby in an office separate from the Lincoln County Asbestos Resource Program and the City-County Board of Health.