Elysian fields are not forever: Demographics and changes in ag economy drive Two Rivers proposal

When Robin Street's grandparents arrived in the Flathead Valley in 1883, they pretty much had their pick of places to live.

There was no Kalispell at the time, no Demersville, no railroad. There were only about 35,000 white people in the entire state, and there couldn't have been more than a few thousand north of Flathead Lake. Chester A. Arthur was president, the Homestead Act was 20 years old, and the valley was wide open.

The Streets staked their claim to 160 acres along the west side of the Whitefish River, immediately south of what's now Rose Crossing.

They built on a bluff that runs up from the river to a flat bench offering vast, resplendent views of the Swan and Whitefish mountain ranges and of the farm fields that now stretch west and east towards the mountains.

Robin still lives there today.

On a sunny day it's like standing at the doorway to heaven.

The Elysian landscape is changing rapidly, though: Newcomers are crowding into the valley, looking for their own piece of paradise; meanwhile, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Flathead's early settlers are making decisions about the land in response to their own varying circumstances.

The result, at least in Street's case, is the Two Rivers growth policy amendment, the largest modification to the county's land-use plan ever proposed by private landowners.

If approved, the amendment would change the land-use designations in the area north of Kalispell and Evergreen from largely agricultural to a mix of commercial, residential, industrial and open space. After future zoning and subdivision hearings, it would eventually allow higher-density development to take place in what until now has been a quiet rural fringe around the valley's urban core.

The amendment was submitted by 14 different property owners. It addresses 1,460 acres in all - down from 1,836 initially, after Semitool founder Ray Thompson pulled out of the venture last week.

The proposal raises numerous questions about how the Flathead plans for growth, about the long-term costs and benefits of development and who should bear those costs, and about the impacts of growth on the surrounding landowners.

Mostly, though, it's a reminder of just how thoroughly the valley has changed since the Streets first arrived.

"My grandparents moved up from Salt Lake City," Street said. "They cleared the land and raised potatoes, grain and cattle. The railroad wasn't here at first, so there wasn't a market [for agricultural products]. They raised what they needed to be self-sufficient. Twice a year, they went to Missoula to buy groceries."

Street's father took over the farm and added more land just to the north. He worked the land in the spring and summers and ran a horse-logging camp during the winters, sending logs down the Stillwater and Flathead rivers to the mill in Somers.

Street himself was born in 1934, in a farmhouse that still stands along Whitefish Stage Road, across from the Rainbow Gardens strawberry farm (which is owned by Street's son, Steven).

Robin Street has lived within a mile-and-a-half of that place ever since.

"Between there and where the road drops over the hill to the Stillwater River, there were seven homes in the line of sight when I was growing up," Street recalled. "Now, I bet there's more than a thousand, if you could see them all."

Many of the new homes are located south of West Reserve Drive, in the seven or eight major subdivisions that have been built along Whitefish Stage since the early 1960s.

In various public hearings on the Two Rivers amendment and on the Glacier Mall proposal - which abuts Semitool to the north and west - some speakers have suggested that West Reserve should be the line in the sand, a firm boundary north of which no urban-density development would be allowed.

Such a move would surely cost large landowners in the area millions of dollars,though, including several of the Two Rivers applicants.

According to figures supplied by the group and from the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors' Web site, a farm divided into quarter-acre homesites could easily fetch 10 times what the same land would bring if it were split into five-acre lots.

The larger lots also create problems with weed management and water quality - issues of concern to any farmer.

"We wanted to make sure the groundwater was protected, and the only way to do that is with sewer, which necessitates higher-density development," Street said. "And I don't think you'll find a farmer who believes five-acre lots are the right thing to do."

Last year, Street had about 1,300 acres in crop. A fair portion of it was his - he owns 360 acres; the remainder was part of the amendment application.

He'll usually start tilling the ground around the first of April, adding fertilizer and seeds. He's raised a number of different crops over the years, including mint, canola and lentils. Now he mostly grows grain and hay, running a small herd of cattle "just to keep the grass mowed down on the hillside."

When the days get longer and the benevolent sun and rain combine to turn the fields green, he'll spray for weeds. Depending on the weather, the irrigation wheels start splashing sometime in June.

"I'll go right into haying near the end of June or early July," Street said. "The grain harvest usually starts around Aug. 1-10. It lasts two or three weeks, then I'll work the stubble to prepare for the next year."

Last year, untimely August rain storms devastated what had been one of the Flathead's most promising harvests in several years, causing the wet grain to sprout and turning upwards of half the crop into lower-quality feed grain. The year before that, Street said, yields were off 40 to 50 percent because of the ongoing drought.

"I remember the first winter wheat crop I harvested, I got $3.51 per bushel," he said. "That was 1949. Two years later, my dad bought a self-propelled combine for $3,700. Today, winter wheat is less than $3.51 and they'll start talking with you about a new combine at around $230,000.

"I have no complaints, though. I've always loved farming. I love the land and love working it. You always plant on faith - that you'll get heat when you need it, that you'll get rain. The uncertainty doesn't bother you. You have no choice but to accept what comes."

Age is another inevitability that must be accepted, and it's driving land-use changes around the valley just as surely as the agricultural economy itself.

"Of the lands going into Two Rivers, six of the applicants own more than 100 acres apiece," Street said. "Of the six, I'm the youngest [at 71]. The average age is 86."

Their families have owned the farms for a minimum of 55 years, he said, on up to 122 years in his case.

"We didn't just move here to make money," Street said. "These lands are going to change hands by necessity."

How to handle that transition - how to provide the owners with the best return on the assets their families have managed for so many years, how to protect the area's natural resources and safeguard the community's best interests - is essentially what the whole Two Rivers debate is about.

The amendment is scheduled to go before the Flathead County Planning Board for a public hearing on March 30.

What ultimately happens with the Flathead's Elysian fields, however, could depend on how highly people value open space.

Back in the 1980s, Street said, while serving on the Flathead Conservation District board, he other community members crafted a proposal for "transferable development rights."

The program would have allowed higher-density development in one area in exchange for purchased easements in another area. The intent, he said, was to encourage growth to locate in certain places while providing a mechanism to maintain open space and large agricultural tracts elsewhere in the valley.

The idea didn't go over very well.

"It was brutal," Street recalled. "We got called communists. But if there were a decent conservation easement program here that covered even half the market value of their property, I think farmers would go for it. If we're going to save any farmland in the Flathead, the public and farmers need to work together."

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com