There is a new gravel resource map charting current gravel pits and geology throughout the valley, available from the Flathead County Planning and Zoning department.
The map was created for informational purposes, according to BJ Grieve, assistant director for the planning department, and did not involve an inventory of individual properties in the valley.
The charting information comes from the state Department of Environmental Quality, Flathead County and the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. The DEQ provided a map of open-cut mining permits and the Bureau of Mines and Geology provided the surficial geology map of the Flathead from 2004. Surficial geology is the area under the soil and above the bedrock.
By showing the surficial geology and the clusters of gravel pits, the county and landowners can have a better understanding of where pits are situated and why.
Finding gravel pockets throughout the valley can be a hit-or-miss process. The Flathead has some of the best soil in the state as well as quality gravel resources, county Planning Board member Charles Lapp said, and neither was deposited uniformly throughout.
“Those deposits were dropped in certain places (by glaciers),” Lapp said. “There isn’t gravel just everywhere in the valley.”
To help understand gravel locations, the Planning Board Subcommittee A called for the most up-to-date charting information. This doesn’t mean it will be added to the growth policy, Grieve said.
“The map doesn’t mean anything in terms of policy,” Grieve said.
State law says if a community decides to enact a growth policy, it must include a reference to sand and gravel resources. The extent to which the issue is addressed, however, is left up to the community. That could be as simple as acknowledging the county has gravel, Grieve noted.
Grieve also said the Flathead County Growth Policy was created before the sand and gravel requirement.
There may be other uses for the map in the future, Lapp said, like using it to locate potential gravel sites, but that use isn’t currently on the planning board’s radar.
Open-cut mining has been a hot-button issue across the state, pitting individual property rights against environmental concern. The 2009 legislative session saw several bills calling for stricter oversight and more public review for open-cut mining throughout the state.
To view the new map, visit Planning and Zoning Office’s section of the county website at http://flathead.mt.gov/planning_zoning.