Montana Department of Environmental Quality
P.O. Box 200901
Helena, MT 59620-0901
Re: Public Comment - Draft Environmental Assessment for Flathead Lake Club Subdivision Project, Phase 1
From: The Flathead Lakers
Date: June 15, 2026
Dear Montana Department of Environmental Quality,
The Flathead Lakers submit the following comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for Phase 1 of the Flathead Lake Club Subdivision Project. We urge the Department to reject the abbreviated EA approach and instead require a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) before any approvals are granted. The reasons for that position are set out below, beginning with the specific technical deficiencies in the Phase 1 wastewater and stormwater proposals and concluding with the documented history of environmental noncompliance by the developer, CrossHarbor Capital Partners and its subsidiary Discovery Land Company.
The Piecemeal EA Approach Is Inadequate for a Project of This Scale
The Flathead Lake Club Subdivision encompasses approximately 1,700 acres, 359 residential lots, a golf course, and associated commercial amenities -- a development that would roughly double the population of the Lakeside community. DEQ is currently reviewing only Phase 1, consisting of 80 residential lots, under an abbreviated EA. This piecemeal approach obscures the cumulative impacts of the full project on Flathead Lake water quality, local wildlife corridors, traffic, and the hydrological balance of the region.
A recent court ruling against DEQ's permitting of gravel pits established that abbreviated processes which ignore site-specific threats and limit public participation are constitutionally vulnerable. That precedent applies directly here. Montanans have a constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, and DEQ cannot honor that obligation by evaluating a 1,700-acre luxury resort one small phase at a time. We urge DEQ to pause Phase 1 approval and initiate a comprehensive EIS covering the full project before any permits are issued.
Wastewater Treatment: The Lakeside District Is Not an Adequate Solution
The Phase 1 proposal routes all wastewater from 80 new residential lots via an off-site connection to the Lakeside County Water and Sewer District (LCWSD) for treatment and disposal under the District's existing permits. We have serious concerns about whether LCWSD has the capacity to absorb even Phase 1 flows, let alone the full build-out of 359 lots, a golf course, and commercial amenities.
DEQ's own documents raise questions about capacity. The DEQ Lakeside Capacity Memo dated March 28, 2025, and the updated Lakeside Capacity Summary dated April 27, 2026, are part of the project record, and we request that DEQ make the substance of those memos explicit in any decision document so the public can evaluate them. The LCWSD is already under financial strain, having proposed significant rate increases for local residents, and is the subject of an ongoing legal challenge from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) and Citizens for a Better Flathead over its planned expansion. Routing the wastewater from a development of this magnitude through a district already facing legal uncertainty and capacity constraints is not responsible planning.
We continue to recommend, as we did in our July 2025 comments to the Flathead County Planning Board, that DEQ require the developer to prepare a feasibility analysis for an on-site advanced wastewater treatment system, such as a Membrane Bioreactor system of the kind successfully operated at the Flathead Lake Biological Station, with potential reuse of treated effluent for golf course irrigation. On-site treatment would reduce dependence on a stressed public system and give the developer greater control over project timelines. If DEQ proceeds with approving off-site treatment, it must establish binding capacity thresholds and require that no additional phases receive approval until LCWSD capacity has been independently verified as sufficient to handle the full project build-out.
Stormwater Runoff: The Current Plan Falls Short
The proposed stormwater system for Phase 1 consists of roadside swales, culverts, natural drainage pathways, and detention and retention basins designed to Circular DEQ-8 standards. While the design aims to maintain post-development discharge rates at or below pre-development conditions, we are concerned that rate control alone does not adequately protect Flathead Lake water quality. Rate control addresses the volume and velocity of runoff, but does not prevent the discharge of sediment, nutrients, pesticides from the golf course, and other pollutants that accumulate on impervious surfaces and disturbed soils.
The full subdivision will dramatically increase impervious surfaces across 1,700 acres in a watershed that drains to one of the largest and cleanest freshwater lakes in the world. The current application references a Riparian Resource Management Plan and a 30-foot vegetative buffer, but these commitments fall short of Montana DEQ specifications for vegetative buffer widths and do not address the full range of best management practices (BMPs) available for a development of this type and setting. DEQ should require a comprehensive stormwater management plan incorporating green infrastructure, including bioswales, rain gardens, permeable pavements, and engineered wetlands or detention basins, with expanded vegetated buffers, site-specific designs, and long-term maintenance and monitoring commitments with public reporting requirements.
The Developer's Track Record in Montana Demands Heightened Scrutiny
CrossHarbor Capital Partners and its affiliated entities have an established pattern of environmental noncompliance in Montana and beyond. That pattern is directly relevant to DEQ's assessment of whether the commitments made in this application will be honored.
At the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, a mechanical failure at a wastewater storage pond in March 2016 resulted in the release of approximately 30 to 35 million gallons of treated effluent into Second Yellow Mule Creek, a tributary of the Gallatin River, causing significant sedimentation, elevated ammonia levels exceeding aquatic life standards, and documented fish mortalities. That same facility is now the subject of an active Clean Water Act lawsuit filed in 2024 by the Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, alleging ongoing illegal discharges of nutrients, particularly nitrogen, to the South Fork Gallatin, with plaintiffs seeking a building moratorium until disposal problems are resolved.
More recently, CrossHarbor's Crazy Mountain Ranch development in the Shields Valley has demonstrated a troubling pattern of water rights violations. As documented in reporting by Montana Free Press in March 2026, a Park County District Court judge found that Crazy Mountain Ranch had irrigated its golf course with water from Rock Creek -- a tributary of the chronically overallocated Shields River -- without obtaining required authorization, drawing the ire of a dozen neighboring ranchers and agricultural water users. When ordered to find alternative water sources, the ranch then trucked in hundreds of thousands of gallons from a well in Boulder that also lacked a valid water right under Montana law. The judge declined to impose the $8,000 fine requested by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, but found the ranch out of compliance and warned its attorneys to 'make damn sure' future water use was lawful.
The DNRC's own attorney cited CrossHarbor's 'persistent noncompliance and noncooperation' in that proceeding. Taken together with the Yellowstone Club's history, this record suggests a corporate posture that treats environmental and legal requirements as obstacles to be managed rather than standards to be followed. DEQ must take that record seriously in evaluating whether the proposed safeguards for the Flathead Lake Club development are adequate and whether they can be trusted to be implemented and maintained over the long life of this project.
Conclusion
Flathead Lake is one of the largest natural freshwater lakes in the western United States and one of the cleanest. The stakes of getting this wrong are extremely high and largely irreversible. The Flathead Lakers respectfully urge DEQ to:
1. Decline to issue a Certificate of Subdivision Approval under the current abbreviated EA and instead initiate a full Environmental Impact Statement covering the entire Flathead Lake Club Subdivision project.
2. Require an independent capacity analysis of the Lakeside County Water and Sewer District before approving any off-site wastewater connection, and require a feasibility study for on-site advanced wastewater treatment as an alternative.
3. Require a comprehensive stormwater management plan that goes beyond rate control to address water quality, incorporating best management practices, expanded vegetated buffers, and long-term public monitoring and reporting requirements.
4. Give full weight to the developer's documented history of environmental noncompliance in Montana in assessing the adequacy of proposed mitigation measures and in determining appropriate conditions of approval.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Coby Gierke
Executive Director
The Flathead Lakers