BUTTE — Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners says a new policy that was recently approved will help citizens who are seeking information from their local government. The resolution sets a fee and provides citizens with a form when filing a request for public information, a federal right protected by the Freedom of Information Act, commonly referred to as FOIA.
"It’s a valuable tool for businesses and individuals within a county to understand what their county is doing," says Doug Ingraham, the owner of Ingraham Environmental Inc., located in Butte.
WATCH: New FOIA guidelines in Butte aim to improve transparency and response times
Ingraham's firm focuses on asbestos abatement in residential and commercial properties. Asbestos is a naturally occurring fibrous mineral. Because of its strength and versatility, asbestos was used extensively in building materials for the past 80 years. Qualities like heat resistance, chemical resistance, and the fact that it does not conduct electricity well made it a desirable material for insulation and fire retardant materials, but it can cause cancer in humans.
In the past year, Ingraham has had several Freedom of Information Act requests before Butte-Silver Bow County, including one dealing with the public landfill. He became curious about how other companies are screened at the landfill and submitted a public records request in August 2024.
"Over the last 20 years that I've been doing this, we had to provide records that said our loads were not asbestos, and they wouldn't let us in until we did. That is great because that is in accordance with federal law and state law. However, they don't do that with anybody else," says Ingraham.
Ingraham says a FOIA that was submitted to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality was answered. The information tracks loads that are brought to the landfill.
But a request to Butte-Silver Bow has gone unanswered. Ingraham says he received acknowledgement of his request via email from the Chief Executive and from the former County Attorney in October 2024.
"However, they basically said that they didn’t have a policy for providing this information, and as of today,y I have not seen that information," says Ingraham.
On July 2nd, a resolution was approved by the council that offers a fee structure as well as a timeline for answering public records requests that can now be made with a form that was crafted by recently elected County Attorney Matt Enrooth. Together with a commissioner, Enrooth and Michele Shea crafted a resolution to address public records requests.
"The county must notify a requester within 10 days that the request has been received, and then within 30 days, they will provide a timeline of when that person, the requester, can expect some of the information or an answer on some of the information," says Michele Shea, District 2 commissioner.
County Attorney Enrooth says he is not aware of Ingraham’s FOIA request regarding asbestos records at the landfill, but says when he took office, he noticed some of the backlogged requests reach back nearly a decade.
"The new FOIA requests are being processed according to the new resolution. Apparently, there were others sent via email, we are looking to complete those as well," says Enrooth.
