A citizen-initiated effort is underway to expand the Egan Slough Zoning District to include property where a water bottling plant is proposed near Creston on property that currently is unzoned.

A public hearing is planned at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, before the Flathead County commissioners to consider expanding the zoning district by about 400 acres. The deadline for written comments is 5 p.m. Friday.

Egan Slough Zoning District — a tract of more than 1,000 acres of largely agricultural land near Creston — is the only place in Flathead County with Part 1, or citizen-initiated zoning, according to county Planning Director Mark Mussman.

The zoning district was created in 2002 when landowners rallied to preserve farmland in the neighborhood after a youth camp was proposed on 160 acres then owned by the Salvation Army. The church organization wanted to sell the property and a plan emerged to develop the land as a youth camp, but neighbors worried the property was unprotected from future subdivision.

The zoning district is governed by its own seven-member Egan Slough Zoning Commission.

Sixty percent of the affected property owners were required to petition for the Egan Slough Zoning District when it was created, and the same percentage of property owner support is required and has been secured for the proposed expansion of the district.

Eighteen property owners representing 65 percent of the property owners in the proposed expanded district signed petitions circulated in mid-June. A couple of property owners listed out-of-state addresses in California and Illinois.

The Egan Slough Zoning District sets zoning in the district at a minimum lot size of 80 acres except for nonconforming parcels that were grandfathered in when the district was created. Zoning regulations outline the permitted primary and accessory uses and structures and list uses and structures that require a conditional-use permit, such as home-based businesses, day-use youth camps and public horse stables, to name a few.

Regulations also set required performance standards for both permitted and conditional uses.

The strategy of expanding the Egan Slough Zoning District appears to be one of attempting to prevent Montana Artesian Water Co.’s proposed water bottling plant, Mussman said, because it includes property where a building to house the bottling operation is located.

Lew Weaver, who owns the water company and the land on which the bottling plant would be located, plans to pump as much as 710 acre-feet of water annually from an underground aquifer near Egan Slough along the Flathead River.

The Montana Depart-ment of Environmental Quality in June released a draft wastewater discharge permit for the bottling plant that addresses water quality limits and monitoring requirements. Public comment on the draft permit ended in mid-August.

Weaver also has applied for a water right with the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, which still is in the validation process. Weaver has said his and the state’s findings indicate the water withdrawals would not significantly alter the availability of groundwater.

It remains to be seen how an expanded Egan Slough Zoning District might affect the proposed bottling operation, Mussman said.

“We have made significant investments in improvements on our property that have the potential to be impacted by the proposed modifications,” Weaver said Wednesday of the zoning plans. “The extent of those impacts will depend upon whether and how the county adopts and implements the proposed boundary modifications.”

The process for expanding the zoning district is somewhat different because it is citizen-initiated zoning. The proposal goes directly to the county commissioners for approval, sidestepping a hearing before the county Planning Board or Board of Adjustment.

Once the commissioners make a decision, the proposal then goes to the Egan Slough Zoning Commission for a final decision.

“It’s almost like it’s backwards,” Mussman said.

The zoning commission includes all three county commissioners, the county treasurer, clerk and recorder and two property owners within the Egan Slough Zoning District. One of the property owner positions currently is vacant, leaving Charles Jaquette as the lone neighborhood representative.

Written comments on the zoning proposal must be submitted to the commissioners’ office by 5 p.m. Friday.

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