MISSOULA — Plans to increase access to a Clark Fork River island and enhance recreation and the passage of fish is inching toward a final design, followed by an early engineering plan.
The Missoula Redevelopment Agency's Board of Commissioners last week approved up to $400,000 in funding to bring the project to 30% design, positioning it for the necessary permitting and making it “shovel-ready” to aid in fundraising.
Morgan Valliant, associate director of the city's Ecosystem Services Division, said a recent poll found that 76% of those surveyed supported the draft plan, while 11% stood in opposition.
“It was to affirm that we hit all the targets set by the community,” said Valliant. “I feel very confident that we did. In general, there was strong support for what we proposed.”
With MRA's approval of the West Broadway River Corridor Master Plan, the document will now go before the Parks and Recreation board, followed by City Council.
If all goes well, Valliant said the plan will become a working document by the end of March.
“Upon adoption and release of funds, we can go right into engineering,” he said. “We're looking at getting to 100% design by next summer if we have the funding for it.”
The city in 2024 unveiled several design concepts for the river project, set to take place between the Bitterroot Branch trestle and the California Street bridge near city-owned property dubbed Broadway Island.
All three design concepts sought to address issues including erosion, trail connections and fixing the boat ramp at Silver Park, located south of the river.
The current draft also places a recreational wave feature in the side channel, where the rate of flow can be controlled.
“That was a big concern, and it's a remaining concern with Brennan's Wave, which is in the middle of the river and it's suffering a lot of hydraulic erosion,” Valliant said. “Boulders are coming off and it's undercutting underneath it. That was largely built as an irrigation diversion with a secondary benefit of recreation.”
Rob Roberts with Trout Unlimited said early work has measured the pressure and depth of the river at the project's proposed location.
“Between those two things, you can basically provide not only the level of water but the flow that correlates to that water,” he said. “Right now, we've been relying on USGS gauges for all of our modeling. This is site-specific data, so when we talk about wave features or rapids, we know exactly what the river is doing at different stages.”
The city is currently working to restore other sections of the Clark Fork River within the urban corridor. That work, estimated at $2.5 million, aims to address erosion by building established access sites to the water's edge, along with vegetation restoration.
The West Broadway River Corridor project would also include a trail extension with lighting. Efforts to bring the project to 30% design include hydraulic modeling, wetland delineation, flow data, construction strategy and the feasibility of a recreational wave. The total cost for the work is estimated at $357,000, or $400,000 with contingencies.
The work will also set a construction budget.
“We've not actually proposed a project at this point,” said Valliant. “We can start those conversations and start active fundraising because we've got this project to a phase where we actually know what it will cost. This is a big project. It will certainly be broken into phases.”
