Lake County Commission Weighing Options for Popular Swan River Site

Lake County officials have hired a surveyor to study the popular Swan River access site on Rainbow Drive in Ferndale in an effort to solve lingering issues that have boiled over in recent years.

The site, which attracts flocks of inner tubers and anglers during the spring and summer but also leads to congestion and garbage problems, remains open while the Lake County commissioners review options for future management.

At a meeting last week, the Lake County Parks Board recommended the commissioners shut down the site for two years while a strategy is developed.

The commission will not take any formal action until the site survey is completed over the next month, according to Commissioner Gale Decker.

“We’ve had a lot of people weigh in on this,” Decker said. “We’ve had every solution from closing it down completely and selling the access to opening it and encouraging more people to use it. There’s a solution out there, but we just need to keep plugging along and find it.”

The surveyor will review several facets of the site, including whether parts of the land are within the floodplain. The survey will also determine what types of new developments could occur at the site, if any.

The Swan River Fishing Access Site is a day-use only public area for hand-launch boats only. It features a paved turnaround and dirt embankment leading to the river and allows access of trailers with a maximum length of 25 feet.

As the site has grown in popularity over the years, nearby homeowners have raised concerns over heavy congestion, illegal parking and overcrowding issues, including persistent garbage left at the public property. Safety concerns have also emerged along the narrow stretch of road that attracts dozens of vehicles daily during the hot summer months.

Due to high use in recent years, the riverbank has been seriously damaged, Decker said, and the county will work to restore the shoreline with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Decker said the county needs to devise a solution for the various problems but he doesn’t believe shutting down the site will solve the overall situation. Closing the site would only push the problem somewhere else, such as the Ferndale bridge, he said.

“People love to float and I think they’ll continue to do it,” he said. “So we need to try to find a way to make it a situation where the floaters and the landowners can co-exist with each other.”