The Whitefish Community Development Board held a work session to discuss the environment section of the growth policy update with Whitefish City Planner Alan Tiefenbach. This section of the plan includes air quality, water quality, soil contamination, wildlife and habitat, and climate change. 

“In general, we relied on many different reports and many different agencies as we put this together,” Tiefenbach said. 

Depending on the subject matter, the cities of Kalispell and Columbia Falls, the Montana Department of Natural Resources, the Flathead Conservation District and Montan Fish, Wildlife and Parks were among a dozen agencies asked to review the section and comment. 

One of the goals and objectives of the air quality portion of the plan is to preserve air quality for the health and enjoyment of residents and visitors through continued exploration of ways to reduce air pollution. 

Chair Steve Qunell asked about no idle zones at schools for parents picking up students. 

“There isn’t an anti-idling policy in the current growth policy,” Tiefenbach said. “We’re adding that to the objectives in the new one.” 

Tiefenbach said the water quality is more detailed than the 2007 policy due, in part, to the fact that the Whitefish Lake Institute had just formed in 2005. Now, they have issued more reports, parts of which have been included in the growth policy update. 

The new growth policy addresses water quality regulations, lakeshore regulations and significant influences on Whitefish water quality including septic leachate, train derailments, aquatic invasive species, stormwater and golf courses. 

"A new [issue] is dealing with golf courses,” Tiefenbach said. “The impacts of golf courses and water quality was not even mentioned ... in the existing growth policy. There are quite a few examples of [the impacts].” 

Finding ways to incentivize properties on septic systems to connecting to the municipal sewer system is another objective. 

Tiefenbach described the wildlife section of the plan as “much more robust” than the previous plan. Wildlife topics include protecting habitat, development impacts on wildlife, endangered species, living with wildlife and noxious weeds. 

The Climate Action Committee reworked the plan’s climate change section. 

After over an hour and four public comments that took 24 minutes, Qunell said it was necessary to discuss how the work session format prior to a regular meeting was not working. 

“One hour, once a month is not enough time to manage this, obviously,” he said. “This just isn’t enough time to do all the work. We need to come up with a better system.” 

He said there was not enough time to listen and make significant changes and added that public input is valuable. He said there would hopefully be a full board at the next meeting in January and devise a better system for the growth policy update work sessions.  

The Jan.16 meeting of the Community Development Board will feature Whitefish High School students' presentations. Then, staff and the board will devise a better schedule for the growth policy update meetings. 

Public engagement has been an important part of the growth policy update and a website, engagewhitefish.com, has been developed that posts the most recent drafts of the plan. All public comments are also available on the website. Work sessions are also publicized in the Whitefish Pilot and the Daily Inter Lake. 

The Whitefish Community Development Board had one public hearing on the Dec. 19 agenda regarding the hangar at the Whitefish airport. That item was postponed to the board’s Jan. 16 meeting, in part because the item requires four votes and board members Whitney Beckham, John Middleton and Toby Scott were absent.