As new owners lay plans to resume operations at Holland Lake Lodge this spring, with the potential to host year-round activities on public land the century-old Swan Valley resort occupies, a critical piece of infrastructure is missing: a functional wastewater treatment system.
To rectify that, the Flathead National Forest has proposed demolishing the existing system, which was built in 2000 and has been offline since 2023 due to problems with the aging lagoon liners, and building a new public wastewater system that serves both the lodge facility and the adjacent campground and RV dump station.
Given the historic lodge’s location in a popular recreation corridor near the Bob Marshall Wilderness area, as well as the Swan Valley’s pristine ecological character, public interest in its fate has run high in recent years. In 2022, a high-profile expansion proposal generated a firestorm of controversy that, coupled with discrepancies in the prospective buyer’s permit application and shortcomings in its review, ultimately led the Flathead National Forest to reject the plan.
But in October 2023, longtime owner Christian Wohlfeil accepted a different offer from investors Eric Jacobsen and Thomas Knowles. Doing business as Holland Peak, LLC, Jacobsen and Knowles secured a new 20-year special-use permit through the Flathead National Forest authorizing them to operate the lodge in its existing footprint on national forest land.
The smaller scale of the new plan tempered public concerns, but the lack of a functioning wastewater facility has remained a formidable obstacle. On March 2, the Flathead National Forest released its proposal to replace the outmoded infrastructure with “state-of-the-art equipment” and “improved design features” that aim to modernize the system and “protect the water of Holland Lake for many years to come.”
That’s according to Flathead National Forest Supervisor Anthony Botello, who said he intends to be as transparent as possible about the proposal and is accepting public feedback “right up until and including the moment I make a final decision.”
“We finalized the proposal and I published it to our website the next day,” Botello said in an interview this week after releasing the proposed action to construct a new facility. “We are truly sharing information as we get it.”
“We have an obligation and a mission to provide and deliver recreation on National Forest System lands,” Botello continued. “We believe in that wholeheartedly and that includes the Holland Lake campground the RV dump station and the lodge. The people who visit need a functioning system and that’s what we are trying to provide — a system that supports public use of public lands in an environmentally sustainable way and that is what we are intending in this design. But we need a way to treat the wastewater.”
During the lodge’s centennial anniversary in 2024, and again in 2025, the new owners did not open Holland Lake Lodge due to ongoing deficiencies with the system. Meanwhile, Flathead National Forest officials served the 44-site campground on a temporary basis with portable toilets, a stopgap measure that it will also rely on this year.
“We know it’s not ideal, but it’s only temporary,” Botello said.
If the new facility design is approved, construction would likely begin this summer and continue during the summer of 2027, Botello said.
“It will likely be a two-season construction timeline,” he said. “We’ll be super pleasantly surprised if it takes less time than that.”
Meanwhile, the lodge owners last month obtained a variance from the Missoula County Board of Health to use a temporary holding tank as a temporary wastewater system, allowing them to open the lodge and begin hosting special events this year. The variance expires on Dec. 31, 2028, or after the lagoons have been replaced and put back into service, whichever comes first.
The new design would accommodate the same level of use including the campground, the RV dump site, and the existing capacity of the Holland Lake Lodge, which is permitted to accommodate up to 54 guests and 12 employees. Additionally, a restaurant is open to the public, serving 250 meals per day.
The lodge has historically operated Memorial Day to Labor Day, even though the special-use permit allows year-round use. The new owners have indicated they intend to operate the facility year-round under the terms of the agreement, Botello said.
Estimated daily wastewater flow for the system based on 101 days of campground operation and year-round lodge operations is an estimated annual wastewater flow of 1,237,250 gallons, which is less than the design capacity of the existing lagoons, and less than the permitted use of 1,693,000 gallons per year.
The increase in lagoon size is primarily the result of the updated water balance analysis, which accounts for all inflows and outflows that must balance on an annual basis.
As with most infrastructure improvements on National Forest System land, the project to replace Holland Lake Lodge’s wastewater treatment facility “appears to be consistent” with a form of environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act called “categorical exclusion.” It’s a less intense tier of analysis than what’s required under an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement; however, Botello assured members of the public that “it is still a form of environmental review.”
“We’re very interested in making sure this proposal receives some level of buy-in from the public, and that includes reassuring them that we’ve done our due diligence insuring that this facility protects the natural resources we all care about,” Botello said. “Folks have a keen interest in Holland Lake Lodge. I know why they are interested in it, and I’m glad they are interested in it. And we plan to engage the public so that they understand what we’re proposing right down to the most technical aspects of the project.”
On Monday, March 9, Botello and his staff will be on hand to field questions at a community meeting at the Swan Valley Community Hall from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Condon.
“The need for this project is to replace and modernize the wastewater treatment system which would restore a valued resource for the community, a driver for the local economy, and improvement of visitor access to the surrounding National Forest System lands — all desired conditions identified in the Flathead National Forest Plan,” he said. “System replacement is necessary to allow the Holland Lake Lodge to continue providing lodging and food services as well as providing a wastewater treatment system for the campground loop, host sites, and RVs.”
For additional information on the Holland Wastewater Treatment System project, visit the Flathead National Forest website here. Electronic comments can be submitted here.