BONNER — A community meeting about a controversial gravel pit proposal in the lower Blackfoot Valley drew a crowd in Bonner on Monday evening.
Watch to hear concerns about the proposed gravel pit:
“I’m going to start off by saying that I understand that we need gravel,” said Caroline Krenn. “I understand that we need that and it’s not about that, it’s about where we’re doing it.”
Krenn and her husband learned in late September that developers were eyeing 64 acres along the Blackfoot River corridor for a gravel mine. It sparked something in her. Since then, she has been busy, starting a grassroots movement, the Blackfoot River Community, to oppose the project and hosting community meetings.
“It just broke our heart, honestly,” she said. “I think a lot of us, we love the rivers and we go to the rivers and we almost, essentially, slightly take them for granted. Until something like this comes along and there's a threat and then you realize, ‘Oh my goodness. I have to stand up and fight for this.’”
Kirk Mace of RCI Properties Incorporated applied for a land use and zoning compliance permit application with Missoula County in September. According to the paperwork, the proposed work would include “opencut, sand and gravel operations to include use of a portable crusher and a portable hot mix asphalt plant.”
Residents started speaking out against the project, with a widely circulated petition, community meetings and messages to county leaders.
Greenough resident Jerry O’Connell is passionate about the Blackfoot. He founded Big Blackfoot Riverkeeper, a local affiliate of an international organization aimed at improving water and watershed health.
“My job, it's a self-appointed job, is to make sure that nothing bad happens to it,” he said. “This gravel pit is one of the examples of what could happen that’s bad to it.”
O’Connell spoke at Monday’s meeting about his concerns about the proposal
“We have so many places we can have gravel pits. There's a lot of gravel in this state,” he said. “To put one in alongside one of the most famous rivers in the world is just unconscionable.”
O’Connell was not alone. The meeting filled the Kettlehouse Taproom in Bonner. Mike Bader, a wildlife consultant and former Yellowstone ranger, spoke about his worries surrounding the project.
“I’ve been using the Blackfoot River for decades and, like most people in Western Montana, it's a real special river and really concerned about the impacts that would occur if this were to happen,” he said. “There's a lot of concerns about air pollution, water pollution. The Blackfoot River is designated as critical habitat for the bull trout. It's an important area for grizzly bears and then there would be a lot of noise and air pollution and traffic problems.”
More than 3,000 people have signed a petition to block the project. They are asking the county to zone the land, looking to disrupt a permit that the developers would need from the county to move on to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for review.
“When you add all those together, it kind of constitutes an emergency, and so we're all asking the Missoula County commissioners to enact emergency zoning, to sort of put this on hold so we can really study it,” Bader said.
In response, the commissioners sent a letter on Thursday, asking the developer for information and placing a hold on the permit.
“I felt very grateful that they were citing how much the public were speaking up and that they're listening to us,” Krenn said. “It's been really uplifting and it's been really inspiring,I think, to just see how much the river means to our community.”
MTN reached out to RCI Properties for comment, but did not hear back by news time. The county asked for a response to the letter by Dec. 29, 2025.
The Blackfoot River Community does not plan to stop organizing any time soon. Krenn is looking to grow the Blackfoot River Community, creating lawn signs and continuing to push for a hearing on the permit with the county.
“I feel grateful that, at this moment in time, I get to be a spokesperson for the river. Then, not only do I get to do that for a moment while everyone catches on and can become one too,” she said. “It feels good to do it, because it feels like you're standing and making a choice for the river.”
