Whitefish Lake protection vital

Inter Lake editorial

Whitefish Lake is an undisputed jewel of Northwest Montana that historically has offered some of the best water recreation anywhere.

The idea that flagrant and willful lakeshore violations now are jeopardizing the quality of Whitefish Lake is alarming. This week two key members of the Whitefish Lake and Lakeshore Protection Committee resigned because of frustration over the growing number of violations and the city's lax approach to prosecuting violators.

The dilemma is disheartening on a couple of levels.

First is the notion that affluence buys privilege. Some of the nation's richest people own homes on Whitefish Lake and are thumbing their noses at lakeshore regulations. It's not only the rich who are the offenders, though. Many are longtime residents who know better.

The lakeshore committee has kept a vigil over Whitefish Lake quality since the 1970s when a channel was dredged at the north end of the lake and lake-home owners felt the need to create a watchdog organization. At face value, some of the violations seem innocuous - grass planted too close to the lake, vertical retaining walls, structures too close to the water - until one realizes the cumulative effect.

The fact is that the quality of Whitefish Lake has been slipping in recent years, and the culprits are as simple as lawn fertilizer washing into the lake.

The second disturbing element of the lakeshore dilemma is the city of Whitefish's inability to adequately govern the shoreline that used to be under county control until the two-mile planning "doughnut" was created in 2005. The number of lakeshore violations began to increase right around the time the city took over planning control of the entire lake.

The county routinely dealt with violations promptly and applied the rules equally to everyone. That hasn't happened under city control, according to committee chairman Jim Stack, who has resigned but will stick it out through September to help fix the problem. Violations aren't being prosecuted by the city, and that has created a cavalier attitude among lake-home owners who feel they can do whatever they want because they can get away with it.

Whitefish is appealing a court decision in favor of the county's vote to rescind the interlocal agreement that gave the city control of the doughnut, including Whitefish Lake. If Whitefish wants to illustrate its ability to govern the two-mile doughnut, it will work quickly to restore the regulatory process for lakeshore violations.

But if the city can't keep property owners from running roughshod over lakeshore regulations, how will it effectively govern the rest of the doughnut?