Missoula County says Blackfoot River gravel property is unzoned
Missoula County response to this story is posted below
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) Missoula County has told an excavation company that a new application would be required for a gravel pit along the Blackfoot River, but the Blackfoot neighbors still want a public meeting on possible emergency zoning.
On Thursday night, around 70 people gathered at OddPitch Brewery in Missoula to get the latest update on what is happening with a Missoula County application for a 64-acre gravel pit along the Blackfoot River. After describing how the gravel pit proposal was discovered in mid-September, Caroline Krenn of the Blackfoot River Community and consultant Mike Bader revealed what has happened since the Missoula County commissioners put the land-use permit on hold on Dec. 4.
After the commission asked for additional information about the proposed pit on Dec. 4, Riverside Contracting, the company that would run the gravel pit, responded in a Dec. 15 letter, saying they wanted to be transparent and they were only in the very early stages of assessing the property.
“This effort will require many months of data collection and analysis before any decisions can be made regarding what operations may or may not occur at this site. Once we have definitively identified any proposed operations and their potential impacts, we will be able to fully address your questions,” Dwayne Rehbein, Riverside Contracting president, said in the letter.
When proposing gravel pits, operators such as Riverside Contracting have to get verification from the county that the property where the gravel pit is proposed is either unzoned or is zoned for industrial use. The county’s zoning compliance permit is required before an operator can apply for a opencut-mine permit from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
On Sept. 19, the new property owner, Kirk Mace, signed a compliance permit application which described the project as “sand and gravel operations to include use of a portable crusher and portable hot mix asphalt plant.” Krenn said the vagueness of the Dec. 15 letter conflicted with the information Mace provided in the permit request sent to the county.
“I believe their intent was pretty clear in that permit document,” Krenn said.
On Tuesday, the Blackfoot River Community learned that the commission had responded to Rehbein on Dec. 23. The commission’s letter said that although the area along the Blackfoot River is currently unzoned, that doesn’t mean a gravel pit would automatically be approved. The commission also said Rehbein would be required to request that Missoula County approve a different zoning compliance form and the information the he provides then “will hopefully address the questions we asked you in our first letter, and we look forward to fully analyzing it and determining next steps at that time.”
“There are two things happening here. There’s a positive: the permit has been voided. The negative is the can is being kicked down the road,” Krenn said. “We haven’t had a public hearing. We haven’t been able to show what the project would do. Also the Blackfoot River is unzoned in areas.”
Bader said the county has said there’s currently no permit so no hearing is needed, but the Blackfoot River Community is still requesting a public hearing. The Blackfoot River Community is also requesting a protective land-use review, which would study the types of development that should be allowed in an area and establishes requirements before projects are approved. Finally, to improve transparency, they want the county to provide clear public notice when all such permit applications are made.
The property with the proposed gravel pit is about 3 miles east of Bonner just downstream from the Angevine Fishing Access Site and is so close to the Blackfoot River that only Highway 200 separates the property and the river at some points. In mid-September, some Blackfoot Valley residents learned of the gravel pit proposal only after noticing the property was for sale and then wanting to know who bought it.
Concerned how a gravel pit and asphalt plant might impair the river, they organized Blackfoot River Community, a grassroots group, and started an online petition to ask the county commission to take an unusual step: institute emergency zoning. The number of people who signed the petition is now more than 4,200, up from the 180 who signed on Oct. 13 when the petition started. The county hasn’t acted on the emergency zoning request.
“We want a hearing because it’s not going away. And there are still a lot of people who don’t know about this,” Bader said.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
Missoula County response:
The original application was not voided; the County confirmed to the company that the parcel is unzoned, as we are legally required to do. The purpose of a land use/zoning compliance permit is simply to confirm if a proposed use is allowed on a particular parcel. Because the County received the application though, the commissioners took the opportunity to inquire for more information from the property owner.