County hopes plan settles air-quality issue

Hoping to resolve a $29,000 air-quality violation, Flathead County mailed a draft "road dust action plan" to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality last week.

The action plan outlines several options available to landowners who want to take responsibility for controlling road dust in front of their homes. It also identifies various short- and long-term measures that the county could take to address the issue.

"I feel pretty good about where we're going," said County Administrator Mike Pence. "We really want to start communicating about this issue."

Public outreach is a major piece of the action plan, he said. The county wants people to know that it will work with them, either by creating rural special-improvement districts to take care of the problem or by grading gravel roadways before homeowners have them oiled.

"A lot of people are willing to take the initiative - and in most cases, I think that's what's going to have to happen," Pence said.

The action plan also indicates that the Flathead County Road Department will identify high-volume gravel roads, as well as other roads with significant dust problems. Once identified, it will look for ways to mitigate the situation, either through speed limits, signs, restrictions on the type of vehicles that can use a road, or other procedures.

The Flathead County Planning Office will develop programs to prioritize which areas might benefit most from paving, and to predict dust and emissions levels based on characteristics such as types of road surfaces, traffic volume and speeds, and types of vehicles.

For example, when gravel and paved roads intersect, Planning Director Jeff Harris said, cars frequently pick up dust along the gravel road and drop it onto the paved road, where it gets stirred up again and again by passing vehicles.

If the county can identify where this is happening, he said, it might be possible to pave a segment of the gravel road, so dust gets dropped there, rather than on the busier paved road.

The plan doesn't specify deadlines for completing any of these steps, and it doesn't commit the county to spending money on paving or other dust-mitigation efforts.

The plan was prompted by a Jan. 11 violation notice, in which the state alleged that Flathead County had failed to take "reasonable precautions to control emissions of airborne particulate matter" on its gravel roads, as required by state law.

It's the first time any Montana county has been cited for a violation of this type.

The fine brought to light the somewhat casual approach to dust complaints here: During the past few years, DEQ mailed at least a dozen informal warning letters to the Flathead County Road Department. However, the letters were basically just shoved in a drawer. A formal warning letter and violation letter probably suffered the same fate.

"I think the view was that the state has been sending us these letters for years, so what's different? They keep sending us letters, we keep ignoring them, so why stop now? We don't have the money to cure the problem, so we just put the letters in a drawer and do what we can," said Chief Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Smith, during a January interview.

Larry Alheim Jr., an environmental enforcement specialist with the DEQ, said Monday that he hasn't seen the draft action-plan yet, but that he has spoken with Pence and Commissioner Joe Brenneman about the road-dust problem.

"They told me they weren't just putting together a plan to satisfy this enforcement issue," Alheim said. "They said they wanted a long-term solution to the problem. That made us happy, because that's what we're looking for.

"It was a very productive meeting. They gave me the impression that they were taking this seriously, that they realized they had a problem and want to do what they can to fix it."

When he receives the draft action plan, he'll determine whether it meets state requirements. He hopes to have an answer for the county within 30 days.

The state previously offered to suspend $18,200 of the fine if the county took certain steps, such as developing a dust action plan. Alheim said whether the remainder of the fine will be forgiven is unclear; however, the county might be able to spend the money on a local pollution-mitigation project, rather than just send a check to the state.

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