Boat facility raises serious issues

Inter Lake editorial

A boat storage and launch facility proposed for the Flathead River just south of Creston has stirred up a storm of public opposition because the operation will have a substantial impact.

It will change the nature of the lower Flathead River, introducing boating traffic on a stretch where there has been relatively little, with the certain side-effect of increased riverbank erosion.

It's a discouraging situation, exposing a permitting process that appears toothless in its ability to stop, much less curb, a considerable change in use on eight miles of river.

Project backers would establish a boating storage facility on a 25-acre parcel of riverfront property on Riverside Road, just over three miles south of the Creston Fire Hall.

There's nothing terribly alarming about that. Clearly people are buying boats in greater numbers and they need a place to store them.

The problem is the facility would also have three boat ramps and two 40-foot docks, and at full build-out, it would accommodate up to 280 boats.

It's estimated that more than 50 boats would be coming and going from the facility on busy days, on a stretch of river which has long been relatively quiet, surrounded by farmlands, sloughs and marshes. Yes indeed, there are some homes with boats and docks along the way, but boating traffic tends to be busiest along the three miles or so immediately north of the lake. Boats become increasingly scarce farther upriver.

The proposed facility would certainly change that. Eight miles is a long ride just to get to the lake, especially with soaring gas prices. So our bet is that a bunch of boaters - not to mention personal watercraft riders - will stick with the river, traveling upstream and downstream from the docks and ramps. Some will pick a stretch of river they prefer, and ply that same stretch, back and forth, all day long.

That's how it works just north of the lake, where there is plenty of evidence of wake-induced riverbank erosion. Apply the same physics to shorelines that have not been exposed to repeated wake action, and there will be noticeable impacts after a few summers, guaranteed.

And who knows what's in store for waterfowl and wildlife?

It is dismaying that the Flathead Conservation District's regulations for docks and ramps apparently do not account for "secondary impacts" such as future shoreline erosion.

Those are regulations designed for a time when there was thin demand for a facility like this one, and clearly, the regulations no longer adequately address modern pressures on a public resource like the Flathead River.

We can't deny the project backer's assertion that there's an increasing demand for boating facilities on the north end of the lake. There may even be a suitable place for such a facility where recreational needs can be balanced against environmental ones. But it is hard to see how this facility in its current location and capacity would not just create more problems than it solved.