North Fork Zoning District | North Fork Preservation Association

The Flathead County Commissioners will consider a zoning change for the North Fork District this Tuesday concerning “extractive industries.” For the North Fork, this amounts to regulating the size of gravel pit operations.

The proposed zoning regulation would limit gravel operations on private land (the county has no jurisdiction over the feds) to five acres in size or an annual production of 20,000 tons of material. The zoning change falls under conditional uses, meaning a review is necessary before any gravel pit could be established.

The County Commission hearing will be held on Tuesday, October 19, at 10:30 a.m. at the Commissioner’s offices at 800 S. Main Street in Kalispell. North Fork residents and land owners unable to attend the meeting can make their voices heard by emailing the commissioners prior to the meeting: Joe Brenneman (jbrenneman@flathead.mt.gov), Jim Dupont (jdupont@flathead.mt.gov), Dale Lauman (dlauman@flathead.mt.gov).

From today’s Daily Inter Lake . . .

The Flathead County Planning Board last week recommended limiting the size of extractive industries in the North Fork, but took pains to disassociate itself from a much-publicized memorandum of understanding between Gov. Brian Schweitzer and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell.

That memorandum, signed earlier this year, calls for a ban on mining in the North Fork of the Flathead River in the United States and Canada.

Current county regulations require extractive industries in the North Fork Zoning District be of a “small scale,” but it is undefined and has not been implemented.

The board’s recommendation, which will be considered by the county commissioners, would limit extractive industries to five acres in size and allow no more than 20,000 tons of material to be removed each year. Those limits parallel limits set out in the Canadian-U.S. agreement.

Read the full article . . .