Egan Slough expansion rejected

The Flathead County Commissioners on Monday nixed one of the strategies being pursued by opponents of a proposed water bottling facility near Creston, unanimously rejecting a proposal to expand the Egan Slough Zoning District.

The proposal would have moved the boundaries of an existing rural zoning district to include property owned by resident Lew Weaver, who opposed the expansion and owns Montana Artesian Water Co. For the past year Weaver has been working to construct a bottling plant capable of withdrawing and bottling more than 191 million gallons of water per year on his property.

The Egan Slough Zoning District currently spans 1,150 acres in the agricultural community southeast of Creston. Under the zoning requirements, minimum lot sizes are set at 80 acres, although a number of nonconforming, smaller parcels were grandfathered in when residents established the district in 2002.

The expansion would have added about 530 acres, bringing them under requirements designed to preserve the rural character of the area by outlining permitted and accessory uses and requiring a conditional-use permit for many uses and structures.

All three commissioners took aim at the number of nonconforming parcels that would be brought into the expanded district in justifying their votes to deny the proposal.

“I believe the 80-acre, agricultural bar is not being met with these properties,” Commissioner Chairwoman Pam Holmquist told the standing-room crowd that filled the Commissioners’ Chambers Monday morning. “... They’re out of compliance before they even become a district.”

Stressing that his decision was not an easy one — given the overwhelming local support for the expanded district — commissioner Phil Mitchell told those in attendance that he ultimately had to respect the property rights of Weaver. While the proposal was not explicitly intended to stop the bottling plant, many of the proponents' comments have centered around the possibility for the facility to alter the community’s agricultural character.

“If this is passed, we are restricting property rights in an area that is presently unzoned,” Mitchell said, adding, “We are a property rights county.”

He argued that conservation easements and other property restrictions could better ensure the Egan Slough area remains rural in nature.

Commissioner Gary Krueger’s 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.

“It seems that we have gone right from public interest to implementation, and I feel that is inconsistent with the neighborhood plan section of our growth policy,” Krueger said.

Egan Slough resident Steve Harvey, who spoke during the brief public-comment period at the beginning of the commissioners’ meeting Monday, said afterward that he and other residents will consider filing suit to reverse the commissioners’ decision.

“That zoning district law was put into place by the Legislature so people could zone themselves to protect their properties,” Harvey said. “I think the rationale they’re using is what you would do if you had a predetermined position.”

The commissioners’ decision leaves opponents of the proposed water bottling facility with little local recourse as they continue to fight against Weaver’s still-pending water rights permit from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, as well a draft discharge permit issued earlier this year by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

The former is currently working its way through the state’s objection process and likely headed to water court next year, while plant opponents continue pressing the DEQ to subject the discharge permit application to a comprehensive environmental review.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.