Saving the Gallatin, Montana Boys, are you the solution or the problem????

[JoseCuervo]

Saving the Gallatin: Groups fight to get river protection
Associated Press

BIG SKY - As sport utility vehicles zoom past on the nearby highway, Jason Gras adjusts his helmet, gazing at the Gallatin River. After seven years of kayaking this river, he said, he's started wearing nose plugs. He's afraid the water just isn't as clean as it used to be.

"You can just tell, it seems more polluted," Gras said.

Like many of his neighbors, the Big Sky native fears continued development in this resort town threatens the water quality in the Gallatin, one of Montana's most popular blue-ribbon trout streams.

For more than two years, residents here have been pushing to get a special designation for the river - one that would prohibit future "point-source" pollution, such as the dumping of wastewater from housing developments.

In 2001, more than 2,000 area residents signed a petition asking for an Outstanding Resource Water designation for the river from where it leaves Yellowstone National Park to its confluence with Spanish Creek north of Big Sky.

Their efforts have not been supported by some, especially real estate and development leaders. They say the tougher restrictions are not necessary to protect the river and only serve to stymie legitimate development.

"If a community grew, for example, and they needed to expand water treatment or discharge, they couldn't do it with an ORW designation," said Peggy Trenk, of the Montana Association of Realtors. "You've got to think about not just what exists today but what you may be putting in place for the future."

Don Allen, director of the Western Environmental Trade Association, said he thinks the designation was intended for more remote rivers.

"No one's opposed to the Gallatin being a blue-ribbon pristine stream," he said. "We don't think it's necessary to make it an ORW to maintain the high quality that it has."

For the special designation to move forward, the state Department of Environmental Quality needs to fund an extensive environmental study, estimated to cost at least $200,000. The desigation also would eventually need the approval of the Legislature.

DEQ director Jan Sensibaugh said she put in a request to the 2003 Legislature for money for the study, but was denied.

Many supporters of the designation say the state missed a great opportunity when it didn't require developer Tim Blixeth to pay for the study, to settle allegations that he polluted tributaries of the Gallatin during a construction project.

State regulators originally proposed fines of more than $1.3 million against Blixseth and his exclusive, multimillion-dollar Yellowstone Mountain Club development. But in a $231,000 settlement later scrutinized by a state oversight board, the DEQ allowed Blixseth to decide how part of the money would be spent, choosing from a list of environmental projects.

That list included the environmental study, but the club instead designated that $155,000 be spent on a special glass recycling project. The remainder of the money went to the state general fund.

The DEQ defended the settlement last week but acknowledged it deviated from Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for supplemental environmental projects by not requiring that the project have some correlation to Blixseth's alleged violations.

"The point is, they did have evidence that stream habitat was destroyed, that fish were dead," said Rob Ament, director of American Wildlands, a conservation group in Bozeman that is leading efforts to get the special designation for the river. "That's what this is all about. And you would think if you settled, the money should be spent back in the basin where the damage occurred."

Blixseth did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. Company attorney Steve Brown said the club chose the glass-recycling project because it had immediate, statewide environmental impact.

The DEQ also acknowledged deviating from the EPA guidelines by not getting public comment on the project.

Proponents of the designation say the state has taken other steps to try to keep the public from seeking the same designation for other rivers.

The 2003 Legislature passed a law requiring those seeking the Outstanding Resource Water designations in the future pay for the environmental study themselves. That doesn't apply to the Gallatin petition.

Michael Regen of American Wildlands said the group isn't giving up.

"We still believe in democracy and conservation enough to believe the two can work together," he said. "We're going to see this process through."

Ament said the state has not supported ORW designations, even though they are designed to give citizens a chance to identify and protect valuable resources.

"They basically made it punitive to try to designate something, because who can afford it, right?" Ament said. "It made it virtually impossible for any future designations by citizens."

At Fred Weschenfelder's Castle Rock Inn, a smattering of cabins and campsites on the Gallatin, Weschenfelder says the state is allowing water quality in the Gallatin to degrade.

"There's these other things that are really beginning to show," he said. "If we'd start correcting them now, we wouldn't have to go through the whole thing to get it back where it was."

 

[Nemont]

EG,
Not many "Montana Boys" hang there hat in Big Sky. Unless you count the bell hops, bar tenders and waiters who live in the trailer courts at Gallatin Gateway.

Nemont

 

[Ithaca 37]

Nemont, Any Montana boys hang their hat anywhere downstream from Big Sky? Why wouldn't anyone want all water to be as clean and unpolluted as possible?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Do "Montana Boys" actually fly fish, or is that just transplants and tourists???

I always wanted to fish those rivers up there in a drift boat...

 

[Nemont]

EG &IT,

I didn't say anything regarding water quality. EG title of the thread asked if we "Montana Boys" are part of the problem or the solution. Well guess who is building the new 5,500 square foot "cabins" up in the Gallatin? Suppose the people living in the trailer courts down stream have as many political "friends" as the people building in Big Sky? Can't blame it on either Political party as both the Rep. and Dem. are up there enjoying the ski hill with their wealthy "Friends".

You guys make it sound like everyone is sitting on their hands which is not true. EG I thought you only cared about the Idaho places you hold dear to your heart?

Nemont

P.S.
I fished the Gallatin at least three times a week while I was in College in Bozeman. I don't remember seeing many drift boats on the upper Gallatin.

[ 07-27-2004, 10:05: Message edited by: Nemont ]