A lesson about water quality

A recent trip to northcentral California to visit with a wheelchair-bound younger brother turned out to also provide an interesting analogy, in my judgment, to what's going on in our Whitefish community. Since this could also be applicable in a larger sense to the Flathead area, I decided it might be worth writing a letter describing what I learned.

My host for the visit, and also the caretaker of my brother, was his son, an architect-builder in the Auburn, Grass Valley and Lake Tahoe region of California, now a well-to-do nephew of mine.

Turns out that he had recently been to a seminar on the subject of best management practices for the Lake Tahoe Basin, BMPs for short. This had come about because of concerns about the Lake Tahoe water quality, considering the ongoing development around the lake.

The BMPs were developed by the many California and Nevada agencies and, most notably, the Lake Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, to deal with those concerns. This can best be illustrated by the findings of the well-known sunken disk test, whereby a white disk is submerged in a body of water to a depth at which it can no longer be seen (as has been done at Swan Lake and elsewhere).

In the 1960s, it was possible for the disk to be seen down to a depth of 250 feet. Subsequent development around the lake on both the California and Nevada sides had caused the sighting by the 1980s to be just 75 feet. (Does this start to sound like a subject of local concern?)

Since that time, local awareness, cooperation, and enforcement of BMPs has allowed the sightings to improve to a more acceptable level of about 175 feet, but which will require rigorous management steps to maintain or improve.

These BMPs cover, in detail, subjects such as erosion control and slope stabilization, guidelines for stream environment zone management, site evaluations, temporary BMPs during construction, and where to go for help in dealing with these complexities.

So, I thought, might this not also apply to what is going on in Whitefish and no doubt eventually to Flathead Lake, or even to such things as doughnut zones? Or is it possible to forestall such circumstances? That would certainly take some doing considering our ongoing development.

And so I ask myself, is accomplishing all of this an infringement on personal property rights? Probably. Is it necessary? To get the desired community results for a cherished environment, you bet. Is it fair? Let your conscience be your guide — community good, clean and swimable water, and sensible land stewardship are all part of the balance.

So thanks to my nephew's career and a well-hosted visit to be with an ailing brother for too short a time, I know which way the balance tips for me.

Ed Prach is a resident of Whitefish.