Egan Slough landowners sue county

The Egan Slough Community has sued the Flathead County commissioners over their recent denial of a petition to expand a zoning district to include land where a water bottling plant is proposed near Creston.

The lawsuit, filed in Flathead District Court last week, asks the court to declare the commissioners’ decision unlawful and an abuse of discretion, and further asks the court to direct the commissioners to approve the petition. In addition to the Egan Slough Community, Thomas G. Lindell also is named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

At issue is a citizen-initiated zoning effort to add 530 acres to the Egan Slough Zoning District, a tract of 1,150 acres of largely agricultural land near Creston. It is the only place in Flathead County with Part 1, or citizen-initiated zoning. Residents of that area used the same citizen-initiated process to propose enlarging the zoning district, gathering signatures from 65 percent of the property owners in the targeted area.

While many Egan Slough area residents testified at a Sept. 8 public hearing that the intent of expanding the district is an effort to preserve farmland, the zoning proposal could have placed restrictions on Lew Weaver’s property, where the farmer plans to build a bottling facility.

According to the lawsuit, Weaver’s Montana Artesian Water Company could produce as many as 1.2 billion plastic water bottles a year and may eventually require as many as 200 car and truck trips per day on rural gravel roads.

The complaint alleges neighbors in the Egan Slough area could sustain total property value losses as high as $16.6 million, based on an expert real estate evaluation.

The commissioners took public comment on the zoning district expansion in September, but waited until Nov. 21 to vote on the proposal.

“The commissioners’ denial of the petition was arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion,” the lawsuit states, adding that the commissioners’ reasons for denying the petition were “variously irrational, unrelated to the petition, contrary to the evidence and based on factors that were not relevant.”

Commissioner Gary Krueger told the crowd gathered on Nov. 21 that he doubted the preservation of farmland was the impetus for the proposed zoning district expansion. His comments elicited a chorus of boos from the crowd when he made the case that agriculture is, by definition, an industry.

“The industrial nature of agriculture is already happening in that area and the scope is the only thing that’s in question here. And when I looked at that scope, I felt that that scope was not going to be so detrimental to that area ...” Krueger said, before he was drowned out by the expansion’s supporters.

Krueger also made the case that the existing district had failed to lay out a development plan or growth policy, which he said were necessary under the Montana statute providing for the creation of citizen-initiated zoning.

Commissioner Pam Holmquist said she felt the neighborhood effort was an attempt to stop an individual landowner from going through a process. Weaver has applied for a water right with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, which is still in the validation process. Also pending is a wastewater discharge permit from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

Stressing that his decision was not an easy one — given the overwhelming local support for the expanded district — Commissioner Phil Mitchell said he ultimately had to respect the property rights of Weaver.

“If this is passed, we are restricting property rights in an area that is presently unzoned,” Mitchell told the crowd on Nov. 21, adding, “We are a property-rights county.”

Mitchell further maintained conservation easements and other property restrictions could better ensure the Egan Slough area remains rural in nature.

The lawsuit claims the commissioners never adequately responded to public comment.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.