Another developer is poised to open a gravel pit in the Blackfoot watershed, so another community group has formed to stop the state and the county from approving it.
In mid-September, Chris was surfing through Zillow, the online real estate website, when he came across a posting for a piece of property in the Blackfoot River Valley. He might have been only mildly interested except he noticed that the 65-acre property was selling for around $22,000 an acre, cheap for the Blackfoot these days. So he called the real estate company.
“The person (at the company) called me back and said that property is already under contract, and in fact, they’re applying to put a gravel pit there,” Chris said. “That surprised me, considering where it is. So I immediately called the county. They wrote me back immediately with the zoning permit compliance application that was filed by the buyer, the seller and the developer. That prompted a lot of questions since then.”
Chris and his wife Caroline had stumbled onto information that has interested and concerned a lot of people. About three miles east of Bonner, just downstream from the Angevine Fishing Access Site, the property is so close to the Blackfoot River that only the highway separates the two at some points.
The couple requested their last name not be used for this story.
Concerned, the couple wanted to let others know what was happening, so they created a grassroots group called the Blackfoot River Community and started a website and some social media pages on Sept. 30. A few days later, they’d created an online petition and then added a letter that urges the Missoula County Commissioners to hold a public hearing to start an emergency zoning process for the area. As of Oct. 30, more than 1,400 people have signed the petition, including flyfishing outfitters and other Missoula businesses.
“We are Missoula County residents and taxpayers who are deeply disturbed about the proposed gravel mine and asphalt plant adjacent to the Blackfoot River near Bonner. This plant would be noisy, smelly and unsightly and likely to have adverse effects on water quality, native trout and grizzly bears as well as public health and safety and the Montana Constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. Much effort has been undertaken to protect and restore the Blackfoot watershed. This proposal is inconsistent with these efforts,” the petition reads.
After the 2021 Legislature passed a law, House Bill 599, that made it much easier for operators to get an opencut permit from the Department of Environmental Quality and made it harder for neighbors to oppose a permit. The bill created a “dryland permit,” which depends only on an applicant’s claim that surface water isn’t affected; limited the criteria that DEQ could analyze; and significantly decreased the amount of time DEQ could devote to analysis. It also negated DEQ’s responsibility to notify the public and the need for a public hearing if an insufficient number of neighbors asked for one.
Since then, opencut or gravel pit applications have surged and a number of gravel pits have popped up almost next door to Montanans who weren’t expecting it. DEQ has approved a gravel pit in Arlee near the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas and another was started along the Clearwater River across Highway 89 from the Clearwater Wildlife Management Area. In both those cases, neighbors organized to stop the gravel pits and legal action was taken, but neither area had zoning that prevented gravel pits.
Without zoning restrictions, county commissioners have little reason to oppose gravel pits. However, even with zoning, county commissions might still allow certain gravel pits to move forward, as was the case with the expansion of a gravel pit south of Lolo.
Because the Blackfoot River Community discovered the gravel pit proposal at an early stage, the group is a little ahead of where the Arlee and Clearwater groups were when they started their opposition. The new landowner just paid $1.6 million to close on the property last week and has yet to put in a permit application with DEQ.
According to the county permit paperwork, Missoula-based Riverside Contracting started the process to develop the gravel pit before the real estate sale went through. According to DEQ records, Riverside Contracting has 53 permits for gravel pits across the state, including the Arlee gravel pit and two pits in Missoula County, one of which received a permit in April 2022 and is a mile northwest of Clinton along the Clark Fork River.
Michael Bader, consultant to the Blackfoot River Community, said Riverside Contracting is in preliminary discussions with DEQ but hasn’t yet submitted an application for an opencut permit. So the Blackfoot River Community will be asking Missoula County for emergency zoning before the gravel pit proposal gets any further along.
State law allows county commissions to establish an “interim zoning district” to “address an emergency that involves the public health, safety, morals or general welfare.” If a zoning district is established, the county must then initiate a study of the situation within 30 working days and the interim zoning is good for only two years maximum.
Bader said he’ll submit the letter and petition to the Missoula County commission within the next two weeks. He said the decision-makers need to know the public isn’t in favor of this.
“You can’t crush gravel without making a lot of dust. It’s fine sediment, and it will float and land in the river. It’s just out of character with the area,” Bader said. “That’s the problem we’re seeing in Montana. The Legislature made it easier to open gravel mines. And the one thing these local ones have in common is they’re too close to water. There’s gotta be somewhere else to get gravel.”
The Blackfoot River Community reached out to about a dozen conservation organizations for help, but most of them declined, which Chris said was a little disappointing. But many Blackfoot Valley residents have come out in opposition because they’re worried that a gravel pit might decrease their property values.
“I think it’s great that it could come before the commissioners,” Caroline said.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
