MISSOULA — "My kids and my grandkids will never have the opportunity to buy a piece of property like this and build it up over the years because these new regulations and zoning regulations and floodplain regulations stop that," Jeff Patterson, a Missoula County neighbor and owner of Willowbend Farm, said.
Missoula County is updating its floodplain maps, as required by FEMA, using updated hydrology and river flow data.
But the update may impact more than properties.
It may affect a way of life for some neighbors, including Patterson, who runs a program for people at risk of suicide.
His property in Clinton stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in value if the update goes through, and he would also have to pay for flood insurance.
Patterson said he believes the inclusion is unwarranted.
"These properties that they're adding to the floodplain, they claim, have a 1% chance in any given year over the next hundred years of flooding. And the people are saying, show us where this property has flooded in the last hundred years in any given year in the last hundred years," Patterson said.
In addition to the lack of a flooding record, Patterson also claims the mapping is incorrect and shows his property at a lower elevation than it is.
The map shows Patterson's property lies less than four feet above the riverbank, but MTN observed it appears to be at least seven or eight feet above.
In addition to the elevation discrepancy, a property across the street from Patterson's property at roughly the same elevation has been excluded from the updated floodplain.
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"Okay, so I guess my question is, as you can see on the map, this property across the street is excluded. And I've been on the property, and it's the same elevation. You know, like, so I guess I'm just curious to know, so why was this property owner excluded?" MTN asked.
"Sure, so at kind of a neighborhood scale, we have this area on the south end of the Turtle Road Bridge. What this map is telling us between was that the flood hazards have a greater extent than what the current maps show. And even at present, the base flood elevation for the Clark Fork River is above some of these land areas. So the map that gets published from FEMA, as far as the effective maps, what we see in the pink and the red is largely a one of a visual line, but also not very detailed as far as those exact boundaries, correlating to an exact elevation reference," Matt Heimel, floodplain administrator for Missoula County, said.
Heimel said FEMA calculates elevations to the tenth of a foot, so minor variations can determine whether a property is in the floodplain.
"I've also heard you went out to the property and Jeff showed you that. So I guess I'm just curious to know, what's the reliance on LiDAR versus what you're actually seeing?" MTN asked.
"So the reliance is on kind of understanding the relationship between the base flood elevation that's published for FEMA, and then the ground kind of there. So yeah, there's properties where we'll see this riverbank or the actual bed, especially in a period of drought where the river's pretty low," Heimel said. "The distinction in this neighborhood is that the base flood elevation, even the effective BFE that's been effective for years now, is above that ground. And so in these cases, our reliance is also coming from a licensed surveyor. So if we're dealing with like a permit on a property, whether it be here or anywhere else in the county, unless it's absolutely clear and we already have good data there, we're gonna ultimately rely on a licensed surveyor to be out there and actually get those measurements, which we did have in this case."
Heimel said if neighbors have an issue with the updated map, they can hire a private surveyor and submit an application for an exemption from FEMA.
But for people like Patterson, the update represents a loss of a way of life.
"When you ask me what my emotions are, they're mixed. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm disappointed in the way our country's going," Patterson said. "And everybody can talk about what's going on in DC and what's going on in Iran and going on around the world. But if we can't be happy, if we can't live free right here in our own backyard in Missoula, Montana, what good does it do to battle the rest of the world?"
The updates are expected to be finalized in mid-2027, with a 90-day protest period.
