A slice of paradise in Montana is suffering economic disruption, but it isn’t a result of any political battles or environmental change. Instead, Seeley Lake’s problem lies in its lack of a centralized sewer system.

The Missoula County community’s reluctance to come up with a plan to replace its septic system means no affordable housing can be built for working people. While high-end septic systems can service multi-family dwellings, local officials explain that they’re not cost effective for the type of housing developers would seek to build in the area. The solution? Only a sewer system will do.

That lack of accommodation means Seeley Lake’s biggest employer — Pyramid Mountain Lumber — can’t attract enough workers to continue, and is closing the family-owned business which has been operating for 75 years.

“To make the announcement to the crew was probably the toughest thing; I’ve got friends, family, you know, generations, good friends that work here. I had to tell them we’re going to shut the doors,” Todd Johnson, a third-generation lumber mill worker whose grandfather started the mill in 1948, told ABC News.

“I’ve never drawn a paycheck from any other business in my whole life. I started here in sixth grade,” Johnson said. “This is all I’ve ever known.” Johnson has since worked his way up to become general manager.

Missoula County was once home to multiple sawmills and a thriving lumber industry. Pyramid Mountain Lumber is the last one, so its shuttering will mark the industry’s end in the area.

“There hasn’t been an apartment, duplex or fourplex built in this town in over 30 years,” Johnson said. “When you’re talking about entry-level housing for more blue collar workers…it’s not available.”

Pyramid isn’t the only local business affected by the worker shortage. Rovero’s Hardware is “running on a skeleton crew” as its busiest season approaches, general manager Kyle Marx noted.

“No affordable housing here,” he said. “Rentals have diminished since COVID hit, and everybody came up here, bought every rental darn near that was available and turned them into vacation rentals or moved up here themselves.”

Dee Baker, who owns antique store Grizzly Claw Trading Company, said it’s a long-term issue.

“There could be low-income housing built, but the people in the town cannot come to an agreement [for a sewer system] with Missoula County,” Baker said. “And it’s been going on for years and years.”

The situation was borne from local reluctance to pay for a centralized sewer system that would allow Seeley Lake to expand, and a fear that such a major infrastructure change would alter the community’s character, according to Missoula Board of County Commissioners chair Dave Strohmaier.

“The irony is that the lack of the infrastructure is … a big reason why Pyramid Mountain Lumber cannot find the housing for their employees and the employees to keep it going, and hence change is upon us,” Strohmaier said.

Johnson offered a glimpse of how much the town would lose once the lumber business closed.

“Our payroll just here to our employees is over $6 million a year,” he said. “You take that out of this economy, it’ll change the fabric of the town. There’s no doubt.”

An initiative to ask voters if they want to protect the right to a pre-viability abortion in Montana’s constitution has enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, supporters said Friday.

County election officials have verified 74,186 voter signatures, more than the 60,359 needed for the constitutional initiative to go before voters. It has also met the threshold of 10% of voters in 51 House Districts — more than the required 40 districts, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights said.

“We’re excited to have met the valid signature threshold and the House District threshold required to qualify this critical initiative for the ballot,” Kiersten Iwai, executive director of Forward Montana and spokesperson for Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights said in a statement.

Still pending is whether the signatures of inactive voters should count toward the total.

Montana’s secretary of state said they shouldn’t, but it didn’t make that statement until after the signatures were gathered and after some counties had begun verifying them.

A Helena judge ruled Tuesday that the qualifications shouldn’t have been changed midstream and said the signatures of inactive voters that had been rejected should be verified and counted. District Judge Mike Menahan said those signatures could be accepted through next Wednesday.

The state has asked the Montana Supreme Court to overturn Menahan’s order, but it will have no effect on the initiative qualifying for the ballot.

“We will not stop fighting to ensure that every Montana voter who signed the petition has their signature counted,” Iwai said. “The Secretary of State and Attorney General have shown no shame in pulling new rules out of thin air, all to thwart the will of Montana voters and serve their own political agendas.”

Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen must review and tabulate the petitions and is allowed to reject any petition that does not meet statutory requirements. Jacobsen must certify the general election ballots by Aug. 22.

The issue of whether abortion was legal was turned back to the states when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Montana’s Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that the state constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion. But the Republican controlled Legislature passed several bills in 2023 to restrict abortion access, including one that says the constitutional right to privacy does not protect abortion rights. Courts have blocked several of the laws, but no legal challenges have been filed against the one that tries to overturn the 1999 Supreme Court ruling.

Montanans for Election Reform, which also challenged the rule change over petition signatures, has said they believe they have enough signatures to ask voters if they want to amend the state constitution to hold open primary elections, rather than partisan ones, and to require candidates to win a majority of the vote in order to win a general election.