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Bob Sivertsen, president of the Highway 2 Association, is continuing to tout the need of improving transportation and connectivity in the region.
Sivertsen has helped set up a Havre sponsorship of events at a meeting of a group pushing to improve a trade corridor from Texas to Alberta, including a route through Montana. Sivertsen has set up an informational meeting in Havre Wednesday on that project and on efforts to upgrade the Port of Wild Horse on the Canadian border north of Havre.
"Northern Montana is smack-dab in the middle of all the activity as commerce and trade continues to grow in the (region), " Sivertsen said in a press release "It's vital that we make a case for expanded hours at our ports of entry to enhance the legitimate flow of goods and people. "
Havre Mayor Tim Solomon, who co-chairs the Wild Horse Border Committee with Medicine Hat Mayor Norm Boucher, said this morning he does not have details about what Sivertsen will discuss at Wednesday's meeting. He said the committee, which is working with the state, provincial and federal governments in the United States and Canada in an attempt to upgrade the port, was not contacted before Sivertsen set up the meeting.
Solomon said the border committee will hold its quarterly meeting in Medicine Hat during the Ports to Plains annual meeting in October.
Sivertsen said the Havre meeting will include discussion of the Ports to Plains Alliance annual meeting which will be held in Medicine Hat Oct. 2-4 — the first time in its 15 years the meeting will be held north of the border. Sivertsen and members of his group have collected funds to pay for Montana-sponsored events, the luncheon and evening reception.
Sivertsen has long been an advocate of expanding U. S. Highway 2 to four lanes across Montana, the goal of a bill sponsored by state Sen. Sam Kitzenberg of Glasgow that passed in the 2001 Legislature.
He also has worked on the project to expand Wild Horse from a part-time, permit-only port to a commercial port open 24-hours-a-day.
The groups in Medicine Hat and north-central Montana say increasing the operation of the port will allow better access to and from the economy in Alberta, including a high level of oil and gas production in the Medicine Hat area and with the oil sands in northeastern Alberta.
The port of Sweetgrass/Coutts north of Shelby, is now the only 24-hour commercial port between the state and province. Business leaders in Alberta have said the lack of a commercial port north of Havre requires them to detour to that port, rather than taking a straight shot from Medicine Hat and the oil sands to destinations in the United States.
Ports to Plains is advocating the development of a major trade corridor through the "Heartland of America, " connecting industries including oil and gas, agriculture wind energy and other fields from Texas north through Montana and the Dakotas, with groups from Alberta and Saskatchewan joining the alliance in recent years.
The grassroots effort has lobbied for transportation improvements to the region, and has secured more than $1 billion in federal funding for transportation improvements in the last 10 years.
Sivertsen said the annual meeting will give a good chance to present Montana and the Hi-Line to the more-than 200 members of the alliance from the nine states and two provinces expected to be at the meeting.
"We have a great opportunity to showcase Havre and our state, " he said.
Bob Kaul, who helped form the Citizens for a 24 Hour Port with Sivertsen, had approached the Havre City Council earlier this summer to request a donation from the city to help pay for the sponsorship, with council members saying they do support the Ports to Plains effort.
Sivertsen said he, Kaul and Jim Treperinas, the other founder of Citizens for a 24 Hour Port, then approached members of the community once they realized the city did not have funds for sponsoring the lunch and reception.
The trio raised $4,550.
"The community, as always, responded, and I'm happy to announce that Havre will be a major sponsor of Montana Day at the (Ports to Plains meeting), " he said.
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