ARLEE - A proposed gravel pit and asphalt plant in Arlee is unifying the community through controversy.
It started in May of 2022 when Arlee neighbors received a notice saying there was a possibility for an industrial site to be developed on Native American yet private land.
A group of neighbors formed a non-profit organization, The Friends of the Jocko, to stop Missoula-based Riverside Contracting Inc. from developing the industrial site on the land.
“My family moved here in 1891 from the Bitterroot Valley as a result of the negotiation of the Hellgate treaty of 1855,” said Shelly Fyant, a Salish and Kootenai Tribes member. “My family stayed with Cheif Charlo in the Bitterroot Valley for 40 years until the homesteaders came and decided we were in their way and bothersome, so the army forcibly moved my people to the Jocko Valley, to the newly formed Flathead Reservation.”
Fyant lives near the proposed plant and she’s also a part of the leadership team for the Friends of the Jocko. The land that she’s known her entire life is about to change following the permit for an opencut gravel pit issued on April 5, 2023, by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to Riverside Contracting Inc.
“We’re taught to live and care for the land and it will care for us,” Fyant said. “And if you're going to dig 12 feet deep into 160 acres, that’s not caring for the land.”
The 157.1 acres of land for the plant is located right off US Highway 93 North on the east side of the intersection of White Coyote Road.
“An asphalt plant that runs 24/7 is going to emit toxins into the airshed,” Fyant said. “We have a class-one air shed on the Flathead Indian Reservation. My grandchildren go to school at [sic] which is just a mile away. The Arlee Public Schools are a mile away, so kids on the playground are going to be exposed to that every day that they’re at school.”
Non-Native neighbors near the proposed pit said they understand the lineage and the values of the Indigenous People on the land.
“There are people here who have spent their entire lives, for generations have been here and they raised their children here and to have something like that in their backyard, I feel like it will ruin their lives,” Neighbor Jennifer Knoetgen said.
Knoetgen said she and her neighbors submitted their opposing comments to the Montana DEQ after being notified about the proposed development and requested a hearing but that hearing never happened.
“I had hoped that the most recent comments that were sent in from our attorneys and the hydrologist, that we would've gotten a longer review from the DEQ. So, it was a little bit of a shock that it happened so fast,” Knoetgen said.
Knoetgen told MTN the Montana DEQ gave residents within a half mile of the site 30 days to comment on the proposal. She moved to the rural Montana city more than 20 years ago and stayed because of its beauty and hush. They’re two intangible treasures she believes will change once the pit is developed.
“It’s hard to imagine something so big and so large,” Knoetgen said. You can hear today, the birds are singing. In the summer, you can hear the Pow Wow when it’s going on. We can hear the horns from the Buddha Garden.”
The proposed gravel pit is about a half-mile east of the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. Riverside Contracting applied for the permit on April 7, the Missoula Current reports. The plan is to dig to 12 feet below the existing sprinkler pivot across nearly 160 acres. One corner of the section will house a rock crusher and mobile asphalt plant. The permit would require the company to return the section to cropland by 2047.
An environmental assessment and standard permit detail Riverside Contracting's plans for the land, from the purpose of the plant to the approach they’re taking for operations.
Riverside Contracting Inc. also released a separate statement to MTN saying in part:
“The Marvin Rehbein site has had an Opencut permit associated with it since 2001, and to date, has never been mined.
Riverside Contracting, Inc. applied to re-permit the Marvin Rehbein site in April 2022 and we were notified by the Montana DEQ on Monday, April 3, 2023 that we have complied with the requirements of Montana Opencut Mining Law and received a new permit for this site.”
The Friends of the Jocko’s website lists the following concerns for the proposed plant:
- Noise levels
- Ground Water Quality
- Air Quality
- Chemical Storage Use
- Property Values
- Dust Control
- Road Traffic Safety
- Fuel Storage
- Operating Hours
- Road Maintenance
“There are a lot of different ways that this process is legally deficient, we feel,” said Jim Coefield, a neighbor who lives an eighth of a mile away from the proposed pit. “It violates the Montana Environmental Policy Act, violates our constitutional rights. There are federal laws, the Clean Air Act, some EPA stuff, some water quality issues, potentially violating some tribal ordinances, and I know there are some tribal members that feel it violates their tribal treaty rights.”
One of the group’s main concerns is the contamination of groundwater. Riverside Contracting’s documents say no operations will be conducted in waterways, and “disturbance would occur above groundwater.”
Their environmental assessment says mining will occur at a minimum of 12 feet, and there will be a 15-foot separation between mining and the seasonal high water level because surface water features at the static water levels in several wells located within the surrounding area are 72 feet to 78 feet.
Documents also show irrigation ditches and canals are within 1,000 feet of the plant.
“It’s obvious that it’s in their interests that they’re going to minimize what kind of environmental problems there could be here,” Coefield said. Everybody knows that when you put water in the ground it just sinks in because it’s all sand and gravel and it’ll keep going down.”
Coefield isn’t alone in his beliefs. Other neighbors believe there’s a potential danger to the water in Lake County despite the company’s reports.
“Anytime you dig into the earth, no matter what your projections are, it’s somehow going to affect the groundwater,” Fyant said. “And water is the lifeblood of mother earth. Once you ruin that water there’s no way to go back.”
The Friends of the Jocko contracted a hydrologist from Hydro Solutions out of Helena for an independent investigation, hoping for an understanding of some of the questions they feel were left unanswered by Riverside Contracting’s reports.
“They looked at a broader array of information: reports, studies, other kinds of documentation to see what kinds of information was out there,” Coefield said. “They integrated all this and made recommendations about further studies the state should do and what kind of conclusions they came up with on the dangers to the aquifer and the air quality here.”
According to the Missoula Current, prior to the 2021 Legislature, DEQ could reject a gravel pit in areas with intermittent or perennial streams, higher groundwater levels or where surrounding hillsides were steep to avoid affecting water quality. Wildfire mitigation procedures were required along with protocols to limit damage to other property and life forms. DEQ could require a bond for various reasons and could limit hours of operation, noise levels and traffic levels.
But with the passage of House Bill 599, sponsored by Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Libby, all of that changed or disappeared, along with citizens’ ability to oppose permits and the time allowed for DEQ to adequately assess the application’s claims.
“[The DEQ] had that ability to mitigate taken away from him, so what are we left with? We have very little that we can do except take this to court and say that the legislation, House Bill 599, the last legislature passed, took away the Montana DEQ‘s ability to do their job. ”
As the group prepares to move forward with their fight, Riverside Contracting tells MTN there aren’t any plans for the site at this time.
“Riverside Contracting performs highway construction work for the Montana Department of Transportation and relies on sites like the Marvin Rehbein site to provide materials for these highway projects.
We currently do not have any immediate plans to begin operations at this site. The re-permitting of this site allows Riverside Contracting to preserve our ability to provide competitive bids to the State of Montana for future highway projects along US Highway 93 in the Jocko Valley.”
The full statement from Riverside Contracting can be read below.
"The Marvin Rehbein site has had an Opencut permit associated with it since 2001, and to date, has never been mined.
Riverside Contracting, Inc. applied to re-permit the Marvin Rehbein site in April 2022 and we were notified by the Montana DEQ on Monday, April 3, 2023 that we have complied with the requirements of Montana Opencut Mining Law and received a new permit for this site.
Riverside Contracting performs highway construction work for the Montana Department of Transportation and relies on sites like the Marvin Rehbein site to provide materials for these highway projects. We currently do not have any immediate plans to begin operations at this site. The re-permitting of this site allows Riverside Contracting to preserve our ability to provide competitive bids to the State of Montana for future highway projects along US Highway 93 in the Jocko Valley.
