Jocko trails group hopeful despite lack of funds

ARLEE — It’s not yet on the ground, but the trail system formerly known as the Arlee bike path has undergone a transformation in scope and in name.
The newly christened Jocko Valley Trail System will reach beyond the original scope of a simple off-highway walking path, to create a series of interlinking trails in and around the town of Arlee, including the hills and river bottoms of the Jocko Valley.
The change is not as radical as it might seem.
The small group of citizens working on designating the paths originally expected funding through the Highway 93 realignment process that would let them establish an off-highway path for residents to get to and from school and local stores without needing to compete with automobile and truck traffic on the roadway.
That funding was not to be.
Stymied for only a moment, the group decided to go forth with its plans to design and designate an off-road trail system to serve residents of the Jocko Valley.
Many potential paths already exist, it turns out, and may merely need to be mapped. Easements through private properties will need to be addressed, as will establishment of connector links away from heavily trafficked roadways.
But the group is hopeful. In the planning stage is a meeting with a National Parks trails coordinator from Billings, as well as seeking out grants to fund the project.
The group, which meets monthly, is a committee of the Arlee Community Development Corporation.

Lake County politicos unite in resolution to protect Flathead River basin

POLSON — Lake County Democrats and Republicans want people to recognize that water quality is an issue that surpasses party lines. In fact, protecting Flathead Lake is an issue that crosses national boundaries as well.
The two parties have issued a joint resolution supporting the protection of the entire Flathead River basin, from Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park through Flathead Lake and the entire Flathead River drainage.
Gehrand Bechard and Suzanne Luepke, leaders of the Lake County Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, signed the document on December 27 in honor of their general constituencies to show the dedication the people of Montana have for preserving the quality of the state’s environment.
“It’s a topic I’m very concerned about,” said Bechard. “It’s a very real thing that people need to pay more attention to. Flathead lake is a very fragile lake. People don’t recognize that because it’s so big.”
The joint resolution references coal mining and coal-bed methane extraction planned for the northern areas of the basin, across the nation’s border in Canada.
“We have grave concerns that the proposed massive development could have critical and dangerous impacts on the Flathead River Basin, its biodiversity and high water quality,” the document states.
“I don’t think the value of the dollar replaces the value of this lake,” Bechard emphasized.
The resolution recognizes the right of Canada to develop it resources, but takes aim at the value of such development.
“Coal development and coal-bed methane extraction hold the potential for short-term monetary gains in Canada,” the resolution acknowledges, but they conflict with Montana’s constitutional promise of a healthful environment. Thus the document proclaims the coal developments’ “long-term negative impacts, including significant pollution in both the United States and Canada, far outweigh any conceivable benefit to either nation.”
It’s not such a wild fear, Bechard said.
“I’ve seen lakes become so polluted that you can’t even swim in them,” Bechard said.
When he was living in California, the republican chair frequented Paris Lake.
“It’s 1,000 to 1,500 acres in size. We all boated on it.” But the lake “became unusable due to the disrespect of nature,” Bechard said. He said pollution form trash, sewage and boat effluvia made the lake unsuitable for human recreation. He fears the same thing could happen to Flathead.
“(People) feel it’s always going to be here in the same form, but its not,” Bechard said.
“It’s dangerous to allow contamination to start,” Bechard said of his interest in protecting the Flathead’s waters.
Luepke agrees.
“I am very interested in the water issues and do support them,” she said.
“Everybody wants the water to be clean, it’s not a partisan issue.”
While the resolution addresses Canadian mining, Luepke said the joint resolution is not meant to antagonize the Canadian government.
“The Flathead Basin Commission has been working really hard with the Canadians,” she said. Instead, the proclamation is an expression of cooperation between the American political parties, Bechard said.
“We want to show them we are united in a front to protect this lake,” he stated.
“It’s not to harm them,” Bechard said of the Canadian businesses, “but the sites they have picked out will really harm our lake.”
The writers of the agreement hope that “governmental organizations, concerned institutions and other political entities in both the United States and Canada (will) work cooperatively to protect our crystal clear and clean waters as well as the beauty and pristine nature of the entire Flathead Basin,” according to the document.
Both representatives hope the resolution gets the attention of all those who might impact the environment of the Flathead River basin.
“Everybody was agreeable that it was a good ting to do,” Lupeke said.

Chance to buy local pasties is once-a-year opportunity

ST. IGNATIUS — They’re the size of a plate, I’m told. Well, a plate folded over, Aylee Bain corrects. The classic Butte Irish pasty is a staple of sorts in Mission, too. The Mission Valley United Methodist women make them every year “for the Super Bowl,” said Patty Krantz, another Methodist woman.
The ladies make them in the new United Methodist Church kitchen, whereas in the past they used to work in the decidedly closer quarters of the St. Ignatius Senior Center. But with the Center’s kitchen being remodeled, and the new church kitchen available, the location this year was a no brainer.
“We have this lovely new kitchen,” said Lois McPherson of the new church, who with Bain is taking orders for this year’s meat pies.
The ladies make 90 dozen a year, they said. That’s over a thousand pasties, created in just two days by a passel of church volunteers.
“Oh, people always want us to make them again, and we did that one year, but no more,” said McPherson. She explains quite clearly there is one chance and one chance only, each year, to buy the meaty treats.
“We’ve been making them forever and ever,” she said of the number of years the women have been creating the pies.
For those who don’t know, a pasty is a meat pie, made by placing a good portion of filling atop a circle of dough, and folding it over like a calzone or a quesadilla. The crust of a pasty is like that of a pie, unlike noodle-based filled dough pouches such as ravioli, or bread-dough filled pouches such as bierocks or knishes.
The women grind “very good quality beef, it’s very lean,” said McPherson, with onions and potato, and use a cup full as filling for each bread-plate sized pasty. They bake them to a golden brown before selling, so that all a purchaser has to do is reheat them in the oven or microwave.
“They make a great meal,” Bain mentioned. “One is enough.”
“People will buy a couple dozen and freeze them to have,” said McPherson. But the chance to purchase them is limited, and is happening now.
The women are taking orders this week only for the pies, and will be creating the savory treats on only two days, Jan. 19 and 21, at the church.
Orders can be called in to Ayleen Bain at 745-4532, or Lois McPherson at 745-4535. Pasties cost $2 each, and are picked up at the church after they’ve been baked. All the women said they’re a deal, and a tasty meal to boot.

Atonement

I just saw the movie "Atonement" with a friend of mine. It sparked thought and conversation about the nature of reality, the use of - or necessity for - honesty, and whether or not there can ever be true forgiveness, especially amongst families for sins committed in one's youth.
It unstuck my writer's block, and we even had a brief discussion of some of the medical conditions in the film. (Funny how some people feel septicemia is not that big a deal!) "Can't you just take asprin for that?"
For all its cinemagraphic beauty, the movie lags at moments. Yes, war drags on forever - but must it on film, as well? Perhaps that's one of those attempts at honesty mentioned by the "author."
The end result is yes, families cause each other pain and yes, after time, some families would rather live with the lies they believe rather than shake up their paradigms with troublesome truth.
It begs the question, is a white lie better than living with pain? For full contemplative reflection, follow the viewing with listening of Jane Siberry's "Calling All Angels."

Lakes conference addressed economy, ecology, philosophy of regional growth

POLSON — The room was packed with planners, land use and natural resource officials, as well as concerned citizens during the two-day Lessons of the Lake conference at KwaTaqNuk resort in Polson.
The Flathead’s economy is tied to its beauty. People are coming, building, moving in because they want to be near that beauty. Last week’s ‘Lessons of the Lakes: Promoting Water Quality Amidst Community Growth’ conference addressed the problems that come with growth.
Issues of ecology, economy, and water quality protection were addressed at the two-day affair.
Larry Swanson, Director of the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, said new growth is “squeezing all the slack out of our seasonality.” What was once a seasonal economy is now a year-round economy, he said, with new growth not in natural resources, but in construction and service jobs.
The Rocky Mountains have the fastest growing regional economy in the U.S., Swanson said, but it is heavily dependent on realty-based businesses, which Swanson describes as “hollow and not sustainable."
While population growth in the Flathead is listed at a steady three percent per year, part-time residents are not counted in that growth, he said. The effect is there are more people impacting the area than are statistically accounted for. In 20 years, the full-time residential population of the valley is expected to exceed 140,000 individuals, Swanson added.
Most of those moving in are in two age groups: those above 60 and those from 20 – 30 years old. The population growth comes with a steadily rising inflation. The impact of growth, he said, is greater than what can be made up for through taxing homeowners.
“We’ve already tapped out property taxes — we’re over-dependant on property taxes,” he said.
“Per capita income in Lake County,” Swanson said, “is way too low. We need to increase wages.” Swanson suggests local government look into work force development and diversification, rather than relying on unregulated housing growth to fuel the economy.
To that end, Swanson said businesses that move in must be “on top of the pack. If you don’t stand out, you’re not in the picture.”
Swanson believes the key to sustainable growth is proper planning and regulation. One good example, he said, was Ravalli County, which voted in a $10 million open space bond to keep agricultural land in production. They are “putting in place tools and planning processes” to confront their increased growth, he said. Lake County was also praised as being proactive in addressing issues before inevitable changes damage quality of life.
“Lake County had some good ideas — higher densities close to towns,” he said. But “Flathead County has had a hard time getting there,” he said. To be effective, he said, planning needs to integrate businesses, government and the public.
“Urban-rural relations really matter,” Swanson said. “They must be knit into a partnership.”
Even the governor had an opinion on how to preserve the quality of life in the Flathead basin. Brian Schweitzer urged attendees to vote in leadership that would guide growth with thoughtful planning. And, he said, “listen to the voices of those who have lived here for 5,000 years.”
“Plan for the next seven generations. You can’t keep (people) from coming to the Flathead. All you can do is develop a strategy to address those that come.”
Knowing how other municipalities address the concerns brought by development to their lakeside communities acts as a tool for planning, said additional speakers at the conference.
Representatives from Rocky Mountain lake and riverine communities in Tahoe, Coeur d’Alene, Alberta, Montana and Oregon exchanged ideas and strategies to address the growth all accept as inevitable.
Some of the ideas sounded radical to Montanans’ ears. Lake Tahoe, for instance, pipes out all of its sewage effluent to an area outside the Lake basin. That wouldn’t work here, said one attendee, because of the terrain and the many miles of lakeshore around Flathead. Plus, the cost is prohibitive. Even John Singlaub, executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, says his area could not put such a system into place at today’s prices.
One idea that brought audience interest was a process used in the Big Hole Valley. There, a citizen-initiated planning process resulted in streamside setbacks of 150 feet.
The number, said Noorjahan Parwana, director of the Big Hole Watershed Committee, “was based on what people could agree to” and not any hard fast scientific claim. Still, some residents of that valley complain the development setback does not go far enough.
In Coeur d’Alene, however, a 50-foot setback has “people balking that it’s too stringent,” said Phil Cernera, director of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s Lake Management Department.
In all the scenarios represented, the one commonality the communities held was dealing with incoming growth.
Tim Davis, of the Montana Smart Growth Coalition, said growth numbers along the Highway 93 corridor are even higher than those of the rest of the state. There are, simply, more people per square mile of land along the corridor.
“We are using the land at a much greater per capita rate than we ever have before,” he said.
Still, he said there is hope. “The Lake County growth policy does a great job of explaining why zoning is in everyone’s benefit.” It is also doing so proactively, he said.
“Most counties do subdivision review without looking at how the developments or roads connect or their impacts on other properties,” he said. When that occurs, Davis said our landscape ends up “looking like Ohio with mountains.”
Some areas, such as Lake Tahoe, limit growth altogether.
There, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency — a group established jointly by California, Nevada, and the federal government, limits the size of new developments, the total area available for development and, importantly, the type of development.
“We became an agency of planners with teeth,” said Singlaub. Also, “no one jurisdiction has power over another,” he said.
Because the Tahoe area has a limited land base where growth is allowed, the agency now deals more with redevelopment than with infill. They are also, Singlaub said, “less concerned” with species protection than with water clarity, a dividing line no one in the Flathead Basin would ever cross.
More relevant to the Flathead, perhaps, are the experiences of the Coeur D’Alene Tribe and the Big Hole Watershed Committee.
In Idaho, the Coeur D’Alene tribe has claimed all water rights from the lake, but were only granted a third of the lake through court process.
“The tribes never even thought of owning the lake,” Cernera said, “until they realized people were grabbing this land.”
His area, he said, has seen “amazing trends in population growth.”
The tribe is now trying to manage the invasive weeds, agricultural pressures, recreation, nutrient loading and spills on the lake, he said.
“Don’t let a few people spoil your objectives,” Cernera urged Montanans. “Clean water is the gold standard.”
And Flathead Lake is clean. For now, anyway.
Ric Hauer, professor of limnology at the Flathead Lake Biological Station, said the Lake is healthy right now. He called it “one of the cleanest lakes in the world in the temperate regions.”
But, he said, it has seen steady increases in algal growth over the past 30 years, brought about by nutrient loading due to population pressures on the valley floodplain.
“These floodplains are the primary places where water is cleaned,” Hauer said, equating the subsurface gravels of the valley with an aquarium filtration system. People understand how an aquarium works, he said. They don’t always understand the valley.
He explained: The ecology of the Flathead basin is based on one substance: water.
While everyone knows about the lakes and rivers, many people don’t realize there is an entire system of subsurface water flowing through the valley. Surface water from streams and lakes percolate into gravelly beds, “paleo-channels” that act as ground water pathways, said Hauer.
“The alluvial aquifer goes from valley wall to valley wall,” he said, indicating there is no place in the valley that is not part of the ground water system.
“Ground water typically flows at rates of meters per day,” Hauer said, but in the Flathead Valley, “preferential pathways” created by the constant movement of the river across the valley floor sends water through surrounding gravels at rates of meters per second, returning water to the river or the lake in a single day.
This makes the ground waters of the Flathead basin especially susceptible to infiltration by pollution, he said.
In areas of nutrient loading, he said, algae and insect life both boom.
Still, Hauer said, one of the biggest threats to the lake’s health isn’t in Montana, but north, in British Columbia.
A proposed Canadian coal mine could irrevocably damage the waters of Flathead Lake and the entire Flathead Basin, Hauer said.
“At the mine site, there are bore holes,” he said, releasing water with a chemistry that would devastate the Flathead.
Hauer said the sample wells have rates of sulfates 18 times higher than the Lake, and nitrates 650 times as high. Nitrates, Hauer reminded, are a plant fertilizer that could lead to algae blooms and lowered oxygen levels in the Flathead’s waters.
Most worrisome, though, are the high rates of selenium. Selenium, Hauer said, causes kidney and liver failure. It causes neurological damage in children. And, he said, it concentrates in body tissue as you go up the food chain.
Selenium levels at the Canadian mine site are 57 times higher than those of Montana’s water.
Because of the gravelly composition and rapid subsurface flow rates in the Flathead Basin, Hauer said drinking wells could easily be contaminated if the mine is activated.
“The toxins form the mining will be in the domestic water supply, no question,” he said.
Because the project is out of the United States, Hauer said the only recourse Flathead dwellers have is to contact their elected officials and urge them to protest the project.
The governor agreed.
“We are at a great deal of risk from coal bed methane” production, Schweitzer said. But “we can’t dictate what British Columbia does, we can only suggest.”
Schweitzer fears, if the project north of the Flathead continues, “nearly 100 percent of the material will end up in the water supply, and it all goes downhill.”
Schweitzer said the state is discussing reinjection and desalination of the water with Canada. “We don’t want to allow the development to destroy the water quality,” Schweitzer added.
“We have to manage our resources to protect the environment to perpetuate three unique tribal cultures that exist nowhere else in the world,” said Janet Camel, director of Land Use Planning for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
“Extractive industries and development are secondary” to land protection for future generations, Camel said.
Schweitzer also touched on the need for proactive community planning and zoning. “After you’ve built all these box stores and strip malls, it’s a little late to plan your rose gardens, your trails, your open space,” he said.
Singlaub agreed. In the past, he said, “there was a belief that all growth is good. Today we know better.”
The notion of pure profit motive has to be rethought, he said. “People don’t come to these areas to see a Target or a Wal-Mart. We are special areas. The only way we can keep being special is to do the right thing.”
“Protecting against rampant, unregulated development comes with a price,” Singlaub said. “Those who benefit from private development have to pay for it. The burden has to be placed on the developer. You have to do it with conviction.”
Singlaub said for every irresponsible developer who whines that environmental protective regulations are too prohibitive, “right behind them will come in a responsible developer willing to do it right.”
During a panel discussion, different growth management tools were presented to the community. Robert Horne Jr., an urban planning consultant, suggested the Flathead region utilize specific planning tools such as conditional use permits, laws allowing agriculture but requiring permits for other uses, character-based zoning and streamside setbacks. Relying only on subdivision review, he said, denies the predictability zoning can provide. Ordinances limiting development based on slope, water table or an updated growth policy provide you with legal protection against random development, he said.
The Big Hole’s Parwana offered additional ideas.
Their regulations include a right-to-farm provision and requiring new development be built around existing communities. They imposed a common standard across the entire watershed, she said, to negate differences in cross-jurisdictional boundaries.
Camel said the tribes considered water quality one of their directives when writing guides for Highway 93’s redesign. They want to keep growth near existing urban areas, and limit billboards to “less scenic areas.”
“The other land developers need to pay attention to our concerns,” said Steve Lozar in a tribal cultural film presented at the conference.
“We want to preserve this as a pristine area,” he said. “We are a people who live into the future.”

The canoe ride was interesting. Used to our heavy river canoe at home, this narrow plastic ship was squirrelly, and wobbled. I told my son to sit still and hold on. We crafted past herons up on one leg, herons down-beaked after fish, herons standing and stretching in their best John J. Audobon poses. We glided as kingfishers cackled and darted cross-river before us.

We paddled through lily pads and milfoil thick enough to choke a frog. With water green as a leprachaun's sweater, murky as Montana fire skies, visibility of no more than six inches, there wasn't going to be any swimming.

The green was oppressive, the flatness terminal. An unbroken line of trees made up the nether bank of the stream, and docks tethered with motorboats made up the residential side.

Idiosynchrosies

My sons and I departed Montana a week into smoke season for a back-east family reunion. The kids were going to meet grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles they'd never known.

As a Montanan, I don't get back east anymore. The last time I'd gone, my ten year old was four, and my youngest son was just a blastocyst.

This time, they were coming along: extant, independent, armed with game boys and Encyclopedia Brown. I was excited.

My brother had rented a "cottage on a lake." At least that's what the brochure told us. I was immediately suspicious, as the lake was also a river, the river a part of the Erie Canal.

"Okay, whatever," I thought. It'll be green, there'll be fireflies, and we can swim.

So off we flew.

We got to the cottage late Saturday afternoon. The road is unmarked.
Miraculously, my brother and his wife, who live about an hour south, found us just in time. It was they who were lost.

They'd been tooling around for a couple hours, wondering where to go in the maze of driveways, gravel paths and river accesses. They were just turning onto the two-lane highway when we passed them. Talk about synchronicity!

Our introduction to the cottage was typical: Hi, how are you? etc. with the owner.
But then we were told: there is no stove. An electric hot plate was provided, but no stove? A week of Polish family gathering and no where to cook??

The owners set off. "Call if you need anything!" they chimed. Turns out, the wall phone provided couldn't call anyone but them.

My brother put the kielbasa on the grill, while my sister-in-law and I went to set the table. We pulled plates from the cupboard to discover the previous tenants had not washed them. Disgusted, we next discovered there were no clean sponges - none - with which to do the dishes. We both groaned, and grimaced, and shuddered.

Surely, for $1000 a week, one could expect cooking oil, a clean sponge, and pre-washed dishes? Surely, we were wrong.

The cottage itself was quaint and solid, built to resemble a hundred year old house. It abutts a murky slough covered in lily pads and milfoil. Fish rose to nibble myriad flying things - there were remarkably few mosquitoes.

After dinner, we set about choosing sleeping rooms. My sons and I got the king bed, where all three of us could sleep but use only one bedrooms. With four families expected plus one single brother, that arrangement made sense.

I sank to the gargantuan bed, and practically fell off! The mattress may have been king-sized, but the bedframe beneath it was not. A good six inches of mattress just hung in midair. Not the most appealing to a sore-backed sleeper, I moved to the other side, and sheepishly told my five-year-old he was to have that end.

new day, new surprises

Morning rose brilliantly blue, sun upon the thick greenery surrounding us.
Ah! I antipated a quick shower before a quiet canoe ride down the slack water slough.

My shampoo foamed richly in the local well water, but as I set to rinse, the shower suddenly went to ice- then stopped. Two seconds, no warning.

I stood lathered, dumbfounded.

In the dawn stillness I heard a sink downstairs. Haven't these people heard of water righs, I thought? Who was here first, should at least get to finish! I just waited.

By noon, I was settling into the realization this was a low-budget retreat.

The decorating style of the cottage-holders was beyond me. Feather-edged pillows of royal blue satin, bright blood red bathroom, and clutter of kitsch of no discernable theme: I'm sure it was someone's idea of Btter Homes and Gardens.

Too, I was in electronic exile: no phone, no internet, no laptop to write on. It unsettled me, and I knew it was going to be a long week.