Gallatin River

[Northwoods Labs]

Saw this posted on the Simms Facebook page:
"[Time is of the Essence!] The property owner of the proposed glamping resort in Gallatin Gateway has applied for a 310 permit. What does this mean? It means the property owner intends on bringing in crews to drill underneath the Gallatin River to install waste water, natural gas, and fiber optic cables — compromising the health of this beloved and incredibly valuable waterway is unacceptable. Please – take action now to make a positive difference for the future. Click here and take action NOW: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1...SRVuWY0nKwLkTUj6jmzFllVKs8fexvYtKxcGLbxTMioHM


Just wondering what some local's thoughts are on this. I've never heard about it before today. I camp and fish in this area quite a bit in the summer. It is a fantastic resource that should be protected, but not sure if this is an issue that is being overblown.

 

[Elk Bugler]

Glamping shouldn't even exist. In my opinion if you need all your amenities to go camping you should stay in your nice suburban home and take pictures from the road. If you want to go camping, bring your tent, your fishing pole, your lighter, your cooking pot, and go catch a trout and roast it over a fire on a stick. Just my two cents.

 

[azelkhntr]

Love the Gallatin River. Nothing like fishing it during the salmon fly hatch. I used to stock up my winter larder out of there as a poor bobcat. Done.

 

[elkduds]

Signed. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

How is drilling and installing pipes and conduit under the river bed going to harm the river?

 

[Straight Arrow]

Please weigh-in on this. Full disclosure, for forty-five years I have lived on the mostly floodplain island just west of Gallatin Gateway ... and I allow full access for fishermen, BTW This jackwagon has already been issued a floodplain permit and excavated a huge pit because he says there was an "existing stock water pond". The small pond dug sixty years ago was backfilled by a D7 dozer from the Flying D Ranch about 1970, so there was no existing pond. He wants to install a wastewater line together with a fiber optics line under the West Gallatin River, where presently there are no utility lines under the riverbed. He wants Northwestern Energy to bore a four inch natural gas line in the same area under the Gallatin. The guy proposes a "glampground" with a gift shop, office, employee dorm, coffee shop, tiki bar, and lounge to support an array of 37 wall tents on platforms and 20 Conestoga wagons, with drives, pads, parking, roadways, and utility service systems ... all on sixteen acres in the floodplain! If it were a conventional campground, subdivision rules would apply. "Glamping" is a relatively new concept for "outdoor recreation" and may allow him to skate through the process of development, which will eventually impact the entire popular fishing stretch adversely.

Please consider the precedent set by such development on a pristine island of the West Gallatin River, with spring creeks holding brookies, rainbows, and browns ... with meadows supporting whitetail deer, sandhill cranes, and a wide variety of wildlife. This is not just another NIMBY ... it will be precedent which allows more under river intrusions which eventually will fail and cause countless problems and huge mitigation expenses. I have been through several major flood events all around my place and have great respect and awe at the power and hydraulic force of the Gallatin. Believe me ... this development is a bad idea. The potential for adverse impacts on this public waterway natural resource of such pride and economic value to Montana is real.

Please voice your opposition to this under river drilling and to the development of this Riverbend Glamping Getaway.

 

[Straight Arrow]

How is drilling and installing pipes and conduit under the river bed going to harm the river?

Like so many utility lines under rivers, it won't ... that is, until it does! Then it is a disaster. There are many examples of such, some in Montana. My main point is that there are presently no such utility lines intruding the West Gallatin River. Utilities can be transmitted by other methods across rivers and other such impediments ... so why do it and set a precedent which will eventually result in a disaster? Let's protect a few of the rivers, lakes, and other treasures. Why do we need to develop everything we see, just so using the toilet is easier and less expensive?!!

 

[Wildabeest]

I think it’s as much about what the utility lines will allow rather than the lines themselves. Utilities allow for dense development. Which has no place in flood planes. We’ve destroyed enough rivers that we should know that.

 

[MTGomer]

An encased horizontal bore under a river that narrow is pretty much harmless,but Glamping sounds pretty stupid.
‘Glamping on the Gallatin’
Does it get any more fedora wearing, Polaroid packing, hipsterdouche than that?

 

[Bambistew]

I just spent way too much time looking at this... A few things... The first being that a permit application does not equal the final design and what is built. I'd be more concerned if I had my stamp on this set of drawings and it didn't comply with current local and state regulation for development within a floodplain. I think there is more to this than what is being presented. You can construct in a floodplain at your own risk, as long as mitigation measures are taken.

Secondly, if the citizens are so worried about these utilites... I wonder how many of them know that the city of Big Sky and the Yellowstone club have dumped 10s of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river over the years? Doubtful that a few campers would have any sort of similar impact.

Lastly, no one is camping there during a flood, any infrastructure, lift stations, etc, would be empty (or could be managed as such during winter/spring time), that they would be pretty low risk to the environment if it flooded. And if there was a more perfect spot to HDD a line under a river, you'd have to look a while. By the time you get 10ft of scour the utility is going to be past its usable life. You'd have to be a fool to let campers set up along the river in an area prone to flooding in the spring.

On the surface, this looks like it would be approved, if it meets all other building codes/zoning etc, or can with changes. I think the opposition hanging their hat on a utility installation under the river, which would result in some sort of impending environmental disaster, is pretty low on the ladder of this piece being developed. IMO, financing and pissing your money away would be the first. If I had to guess... the opposition lives on the other side of the river and doesn't want to look at a bunch of campers, wall tents, mini houses, etc. Just a hunch.

On a side note, are campgrounds really that hot of a ticket these days?

 

[Straight Arrow]

I wonder how many of them know that the city of Big Sky and the Yellowstone club have dumped 10s of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river over the years? Doubtful that a few campers would have any sort of similar impact.

All of us and many, many more. That is just another huge environmental concern regarding the West Gallatin River.

 

[Straight Arrow]

I think the opposition hanging their hat on a utility installation under the river...

Nope, not the case. There are four large issues with respect to floodplain permits, either pending or which have received complaints. You can't eat a whole elephant; so just take some big bites. Opposition to utilities under the West Gallatin River is one bite.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

Yea

Please weigh-in on this. Full disclosure, for forty-five years I have lived on the mostly floodplain island just west of Gallatin Gateway ... and I allow full access for fishermen, BTW This jackwagon has already been issued a floodplain permit and excavated a huge pit because he says there was an "existing stock water pond". The small pond dug sixty years ago was backfilled by a D7 dozer from the Flying D Ranch about 1970, so there was no existing pond. He wants to install a wastewater line together with a fiber optics line under the West Gallatin River, where presently there are no utility lines under the riverbed. He wants Northwestern Energy to bore a four inch natural gas line in the same area under the Gallatin. The guy proposes a "glampground" with a gift shop, office, employee dorm, coffee shop, tiki bar, and lounge to support an array of 37 wall tents on platforms and 20 Conestoga wagons, with drives, pads, parking, roadways, and utility service systems ... all on sixteen acres in the floodplain! If it were a conventional campground, subdivision rules would apply. "Glamping" is a relatively new concept for "outdoor recreation" and may allow him to skate through the process of development, which will eventually impact the entire popular fishing stretch adversely.

Please consider the precedent set by such development on a pristine island of the West Gallatin River, with spring creeks holding brookies, rainbows, and browns ... with meadows supporting whitetail deer, sandhill cranes, and a wide variety of wildlife. This is not just another NIMBY ... it will be precedent which allows more under river intrusions which eventually will fail and cause countless problems and huge mitigation expenses. I have been through several major flood events all around my place and have great respect and awe at the power and hydraulic force of the Gallatin. Believe me ... this development is a bad idea. The potential for adverse impacts on this public waterway natural resource of such pride and economic value to Montana is real.

Please voice your opposition to this under river drilling and to the development of this Riverbend Glamping Getaway.

Will do, for what it is worth. This is a pretty cool spot, but I did want to defer to local knowledge before making input

 

[Straight Arrow]

On a side note, are campgrounds really that hot of a ticket these days?

Exactly ... and who really wants to come to a fly fishing mecca to live in a wall tent or Conestoga? But once such a monstrously bad idea materializes into such a configuration, then after it fails it takes the river decades, if not centuries, to get things back to a pristine fisheries quality. So .... why take your implied advice and just let it happen?

BTW are you related to this jackwagon?

If I had to guess... the opposition lives on the other side of the river and doesn't want to look at a bunch of campers, wall tents, mini houses, etc. Just a hunch.

Wrong again. I live on the island and presently this guy has security cameras and some sort of bright strobe light which shines at night into my house. But aside from my personal, next-door perspective ... I am a senior Montanan who values the Gallatin and the many other great rivers here and has disgustedly seen many decades of that same kind of attitude which has degraded our natural treasures for a dime. Simms Fishing Products Co and others who are concerned about this and other issues of importance to preserving and protecting rivers are not just folks who live "on the other side of the river". That characterization is absurd and offensive.

 

[Wildabeest]

this guy has security cameras and some sort of bright strobe light which shines at night into my house

Sounds like you are in need of some target practice. Just sayin’...

 

[Bambistew]

So you are opposed to it because... as I said NIMBY? And you live in the floodplain on an island? I'm not following your weird logic.

What's a senior Montanan?

 

[Tradewind]

So you are opposed to it because... as I said NIMBY? And you live in the floodplain on an island? I'm not following your weird logic.

What's a senior Montanan?

In most cases it means age gives you license

 

[Northwoods Labs]

So you are opposed to it because... as I said NIMBY? And you live in the floodplain on an island? I'm not following your weird logic.

What's a senior Montanan?

I don't understand the NIMBY comments............are they supposed to be insults? Rivers are a pretty rare resource, they make up like 0.01% of freshwater on Earth. Then, you think about the rivers that are not totally developed and polluted.......even less. They are a rare resource, that happen to be ins some folks' backyard. I'll fight to protect the Gallatin River, but probably would fight harder to protect the St Croix. Why? Because it's in my backyard.

Your NIMBY argument makes no sense, of course people are going to care about the lands and resources around them. If you don't it's probably because you live in LA or Chicago

 

[Straight Arrow]

So you are opposed to it because... as I said NIMBY? And you live in the floodplain on an island? I'm not following your weird logic.

As your points illustrate, this is not a simple issue, nor merely a neighborhood limited NIMBY concern. Reading comprehension is important to understand what I wrote above describing a broad perspective of concerns ... not merely confined to my close proximity to this potential adverse impact on the West Gallatin River; certainly not confined in that the precedent will be far reaching and perhaps exponentially impactful.

What's a senior Montanan?

Since 1959 when I was a young member of the Junior Conservation Club in Great Falls, Montana, and planted trees for natural waterway protection and preservation, I have been active in advocating, raising funds, and working to protect and preserve Montana's great natural resources and the treasures of the Treasure State which draw visitors from far and wide. 1959 up until now ... that should reflect some degree of "seniority". My contributions pale in comparison to such Montana conservation leaders as Jim Posewitz, Tony Schoonen, Bob Gibson, and others, but I have looked to them for guidance in doing my little part for several decades. The least I can do is to write a post in a blog to encourage like-minded conservationists to voice their opposition to what I clearly see as a bad idea with respect to impacts on the Gallatin River.

 

[Bambistew]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, I gave mine on the probability of the construction from a neutral position. I've been a party to a few hundred development projects I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from permitting, and the risks associated. I've put together a couple HDD concepts in the last couple months actually, with over 5000ft of pipe.

Expressing your opinion and projects following the regulations are two different things. Public comments based on emotion are put in a file and never looked at again. The "I don't like it" comments are useless. The comments that try to nit pick regulations or highlight some sort of obscure risk are looked at and reviewed... sometimes incorporated, sometimes not if the risks are very low or the intent of the regulations are still met. I have no idea on the background of the permittee, other than what little I read and you wrote which sounds like he doesn't really understand what he's doing... but again, an engineer provided stamped drawings for review/permitting. That requires a lot of due diligence before taking that risk (signature)... usually. His azz is on the line should shomething go south due to the design presented/constructed. On the surface the project doesn't seem like the risk matches what the letter/blog makes it out to be. Nor does it seem like some huge risk above and beyond what is already in place in the area. The risk to the environment is very, very small IMO. Denial of the permit, would likely trigger a lawsuit if the agency can't provide facts that the project can't go as designed if it follows the regulations. That's why we have regulations. If you can't meet them, you can't build. Denial because you don't like it doesn't stop construction unless the owner gets tired of the runaround and gives up. I doubt this guy has a lot of money if is business model is a campground, but I could be wrong. Keeping the heat on will probably make him give up.

The reality is that it won't have any sort of measurable effect on the river or water quality... other than aesthetics. I don't fault you for being opposed, just pointing it out. Its human nature to look out your backdoor first... a hipster campground seems pretty lame, but so are a lot of things.

There are 1000s of utility crossings that go under rivers in Montana alone, this isn't some new concept, and the state hasn't become some wasteland because of of them. Do those crossings fail occasionally, sure. Are the effects long lasting, no. How many water and sewer mains cross streams in Bozeman? I'll bet its over 100, maybe more. Some where likely trenched in, vs HDD/bore and jack.

The pictures that show the flooding... Just speculating based on orientation, but it appears the existing municipal sewer system (that he wants to tie into and you may be connected to?) would have flooded out at that time as well. If that is the case, how would the addition of the campground system have any measurable effect on that "pollution" generated from a flood? Lots of turds get flushed in a flood, human, animal and otherwise.