Water concerns stall county decision on lodge

Citing overriding concerns about potential groundwater contamination, the Flathead County commissioners on Tuesday tabled a decision on a major land-use permit for Glacier Guides Lodge near West Glacier.

The clock is ticking on a 60-day review period for the permit application, though, and the commissioners must render a decision by the end of January. Lodge owners have just a couple of weeks to work out concerns over their well and septic system and resolve other issues such as getting a public accommodation license.

Built by Camp Winnakee LLC — also known as Glacier Wilderness Guides — the lodge opened last summer under the parameters of a minor land-use permit.

In August 2010, the Flathead City-County Health Department ordered the lodge to close after officials determined the business failed to get proper permits. The owners got verbal approval to keep it open until the end of the summer season, and it’s now closed.

The state-permitted septic system was designed and permitted for 24 occupants per day. While the lodge owners say they’ll adhere to the 24-person benchmark, there’s no enforcement oversight to assure that, County Health Administrator Joe Russell said.

“We’re not going to go up there every day” to see if there are 24 guests, Russell said.

To attempt to revolve the remaining issues and get the lodge back open, the lodge owners — Denny Gignoux, Cris Coughlin and Randy Gayner — opted to apply for a major land-use review and permit for an expansion of an existing commercial use greater than 25 percent of existing commercial structures and/or activity areas when the total use area involves more than one acre.

Joe Hoff, who owns property on three sides of the lodge, said Glacier Wildness Guides’ “after the fact” approach has the potential to do major harm to surrounding property owners and users of a water system that serves Glacier Ridge Subdivision.

Andrew Paslawsky, a consulting engineer who also is a property owner in Glacier Ridge Subdivision, said that during the state Department of Environmental Quality approval process for the lodge, the owners should have addressed the proximity of public water and sewer systems to their proposed use and failed to do so.

“If they are within 500 feet of a public system they are required to connect, however, there are some exemption off-ramps available,” Paslawsky said in a letter to the commissioners. “To use these off-ramps they must go through a demonstration process to qualify. They failed to do this in the application.”

The lodge owners stated on their county septic permit application that it’s 3 miles to the nearest public water supply.

Paslawsky said the owners didn’t contact the water association or Hoff, the operator of the system, to discuss the issue. He has asked the state to investigate the matter.

Commissioner Jim Dupont said a lack of communication has plagued the project.

“A lot of this could have been solved with communications with the neighbors,” Dupont said.

Paslawsky agreed, saying “the applicants should have come to us neighbors to resolve the public water supply issue before ever submitting their first application to the [state].”

Gignoux, speaking on behalf of his partners, told the commissioners the state had encouraged them to dig a well and put in a septic for the lodge.

But when Russell disputed that, saying that “encouraged” was too strong a word and that the state simply processed the paperwork, Gignoux admitted “we received poor information and poor advice” from the state. He promised to work with neighbors and public health officials to remedy water quality concerns.

Commissioner Dale Lauman said he’d like to see a water study done in that area to assure the lodge operation won’t harm water quality in the long run.

“I have so many reservations,” he said. “There’s no real assurance this won’t contaminate the water and this is a scenic corridor. Once we contaminate the water in an area, it’s contaminated” and it’s difficult to reverse the damage.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.