Finally.

It's taken more than a decade of watching Flathead Lake shoreline wash away, but finally there seems to be agreement on the best way to stop it.

Finally, the hodgepodge of agencies and entities interested in shoreline protection appears to have coalesced around a single project that was hastily undertaken by state Sen. Bob Keenan, R-Bigfork, at his north shore property. A "dynamic equilibrium beach" that has been built on Keenan's shoreline is viewed as a model to provide momentum for similar projects along the lake's entire, rapidly eroding northern shoreline.

It would indeed be wise to follow through quickly on the rest of the northern shoreline, with cooperation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Salish-Kootenai Tribes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Flathead County planners.

Make it happen.

Before Keenan got involved, the wheel-spinning that's been associated with protecting the north shore has been pretty ridiculous. People were shouting that something had to be done because of the obvious - huge chunks of the shoreline were getting swallowed by the lake every year.

But proposed remedies involving seawalls or revetment structures were usually met with considerable opposition, mostly from the above listed agencies with an interest in protecting the lakeshore. The concern was that seawall structures would separate the lake from the wetlands, resulting in unintended environmental consequences.

To address that problem, Dr. Mark Lorang of the University of Montana Yellow Bay Biological Station has for 20 years been urging the use of engineered cobble beaches as the best remedy.

Keenan had already signed on for a seawall project, but after recognizing the regulatory opposition he would likely face, Keenan sought out Lorang for an alternative approach more likely to succeed, with environmental benefits. What rapidly resulted was a 1,300-foot beach of washed rock, designed to shift and reinforce itself against the biggest waves Flathead Lake can deliver.

It was an emergency project, considering that in one area Keenan's shoreline receded a whopping 40 feet in a one-month period last summer, and he faced the prospect of losing even more this summer, because the erosion had reached a point where the lake was on the verge of breaching into the wetlands on his property.

With Lorang signed on to supervise the project, it was endorsed by the interested agencies in a matter of weeks. That should be a telling example to other property owners on the north shore.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is pursuing grants and other funding sources that could be used to protect the shoreline on a fairly rapid schedule that would start this winter. That would be a wonder worth watching.