New growth spurt turns up old problems

By Carlotta Grandstaff, Coordinator, Bitterrooters for Planning

The headline in the April 10 issue of the Star, “Subdivisions in north valley facing deer problems,” got it backwards. Allow a rewrite to more accurately identify the problem: “Deer in north valley facing subdivision problems.”

To be even more accurate, deer, elk, moose and bear, not to mention the numerous small mammals and untold numbers of birds, are all facing the pressure of human development in wildlife habitat previously undeveloped by humans.

Simply put, building homes in wildlife habitat creates conflicts for both humans and wildlife that would not exist if we applied a little forethought and some common sense in planning our human landscape.

We live in a long, narrow river valley bordered east and west with mountain ranges that preclude human development. Our buildable land base is, therefore, finite, and the current process for residential development exploits and ruins what we hold most dear about our land, and what we want to pass on to future generations: wildlife, wildlife habitat, scenery. Wildlife cannot survive in the mountains in winter, and must come down into the river valley if they are to endure into the spring. When we build residential subdivisions in wildlife habitat, we convert that habitat and that vital winter game range into a suburban horror show for elk, deer, bear and moose: houses, motorcycles, four-wheelers, dogs, noise, excessive busyness and hundreds, if not thousands of cats. In short, without thoughtful planning, the Bitterroot is in danger of turning into the South Hills of Missoula. 

One smart idea to keep us from fouling our own nest is to build out from the core of our cities and towns where infrastructure and services already exist. When towns grow outwards from an urban core rather than leap-frog chaotically into the far-flung outskirts, the challenges to the community and taxpayers are not as great because needed public infrastructure and services are already available. Think about it: no new, bad, costly and barely-maintained dirt roads fragmenting outlying habitat, no new wells punched into the aquifer, no new septic tanks in fragile habitat.

Not everyone will want to hear it, especially the realtors who are always advertising properties with phrases designed to exploit the very attributes building would destroy, such as “Elk in your back yard!” and “Fish from your deck!” or the builders who see the valley as one endless, empty canvas to fill up, or elected officials who won’t want to take on the hard work of figuring out how to pay for a larger sewage treatment plant, or the mortgage brokers who make money on home loans, or, most offensively, the faceless, anonymous LLCs that buy up the land that we call home and they call “dirt” to be built upon, but it needs to be said: There are limits to growth. Without limits, growth will spread like a cancer across the valley, the wildlife will vanish and hunting season will be nothing more than a quaint and fond memory passed down to the grandkids as tall tales.

The papers tell us also that home construction is on the increase, but those articles don’t tell the other side of the story: that the land that supports wildlife and its habitat is being slowly destroyed as everyone cheers and worships at the altar of an “economy” as sacred as religion and never to be questioned. We can’t keep kicking this land planning can down the road, thinking that we’re protecting the public interest when we’re doing the opposite.

In Montana, as the old joke goes, the sacred cow is . . .  a cow. But the wildlife that share this home with us are sacred in their own right, and deserve whatever protection we can give them. Thoughtful land use planning is a good place to begin.