Lakers meeting highlights North Shore

There was a recurring theme at the Flathead Lakers annual meeting last week at Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork. The time to protect land around the Lake, they agreed, is now.

Multiple speakers talked about potential opportunities and ongoing projects along the North Shore of Flathead Lake, a high-profile conservation goal for many area organizations.

Marilyn Wood, executive director of the Flathead Land Trust, told the crowd that while the down economy might not be a boon for donations, dropping land values make land purchases more attainable.

"The bad news is that the economy has tanked," she said. "But it's a tremendous opportunity for those of us in private land trusts."

Wood said that with residential development suddenly looking more like a money pit than money maker, some of the pressure of the last five or so years is off. And noweher is that felt more than along Highway 82.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity for the North Shore," Wood said.

Along with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the land trust acquired a parcel that adjoins the federally managed Waterfowl Production Area in 2008. That site, which Wood said could be an "anchor" for more conservation, will be managed by the FWP and eventually have a small state park on it.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity, though, surrounds the proposed North Shore Ranch development just east of Somers along the south side of Highway 82.

A proposal for almost 300 houses on about 400 acres was turned down by the Flathead County Commissioners in 2007. And while the developers sued the county and are currently appealing the case to the Montana Supreme Court, Wood said it also presents a chance for the land trust to make an offer to buy the developers out.

"Offers have been made based on fair market value and appraisal," she said.

Though she didn't get into sepcifics, that property is valued around $5 to $6 million, she said.

In other business at the meeting, Flathead Lakers President Larry Ashcroft presented the organization's annual stewardship award for someone who has gone above and beyond in protecting the Flathead watershed to Rich Moy.

Moy retired last December from a long career with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, retiring as Water Management Bureau Chief.

In the late 1970s, a coal mine proposal in the headwaters of the North Fork Flathead River in British Columbia propelled Moy into 30 years of work protecting Flathead waters and the Crown of the Continent. He was instrumental in developing the agreement signed by Governor Judy Martz and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell on transboundary natural resource management cooperation. He was awarded a lifetime service award by the EPA in 2007, an award that recognizes extraordinary contributions to protecting the environment.

The Lakers also took time to thank local legislators Senator Verdell Jackson (R-Kalispell) and Representative Janna Taylor (R-Dayton) for their work in getting a bill passed that funds efforts to prevent invasive acquatic species from infiltrating Montana.

Jackson sponsored the bill in the Senate during the 2009 session and Taylor took it through the House. It received overwhelming support in both chambers.

"It just sailed through," Ashcroft told the crowd, "thanks to Verdell and Janna."