City approves new agreement with FWP on Beaver Lake fishing access

The City of Whitefish has approved an agreement that would allow Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to maintain a fishing access site at Beaver Lake, but not provide lease funds for the site.

City Council last week approved the memorandum of understanding regarding the fishing access.

City Attorney Angela Jacobson said while the city will not receive the yearly lease fee of $3,500 for the site that it typically receives, the agreement would preserve public access to the fishing site. The city previously passed the lease fee to Whitefish Legacy Partners, which manages the area in the recreation deed including the Whitefish Trail.

“We talked about some creative solutions that has FWP contribute to maintenance costs,” she said.

The agreement will have FWP provide funds for maintenance, which does help with costs, Jacobson notes.

Beaver Lake is located west of Whitefish off Beaver Lake Road.

The city, WLP and FWP recently reached an agreement that requires FWP to maintain the fishing access area including with garbage pickup, provide a portable toilet from May 1 to Oct. 31, to pay any capital improvements for the site including for the parking area and boat launch, and contribute to dust abatement on the road to the site up to $1,000 annually.

Mayor John Muhlfeld said he was surprised by such a tight budget that has FWP unable to come up with the funds.

“It amazes me that FWP can’t come up with $3,500 to maintain public access to a public resource,” he said. “Hard times, I guess.”

The new agreement also requires FWP to explore the feasibility of establishing an additional fishing access site within the recreation use easement area at Murray Lake.

Since 2012 the city has held a public recreation deed for the Beaver Lakes area. In order to preserve public access to the lake, the city since 2014 has leased an roughly 2 acre fishing site to FWP. As part of the agreement, FWP paid a lease fee of $3,500 to the city which passed it to Legacy Partners. FWP was also required to maintain existing vehicle parking, maintain the boat ramp and provide signs.

In 2018, FWP informed the city it would not have funds to pay the lease fee in the future. Thus, the two parties, along with Whitefish Legacy Partners, entered into a two-year extension of the initial 5-year lease agreement in order to allow time to reach a new agreement.

Heidi Van Everan, executive director of Whitefish Legacy Partners, said it's positive that FWP will still be able to provide $1,000 for dust abatement and support for the fishing access site. Legacy Partners will be fundraising for the remaining $2,000 that will no longer be paid by FWP.

“We’re disheartened that this happened,” she said. “It’s amazing they can’t find funds to support this. This is the best agreement we could come up with. We’d like to be involved with and would support more fishing access [for Murray Lake].

The new agreement is in effect until March of 2022.