SEELEY LAKE - The underlying issue of the sewer proposal is Seeley Lake’s ability to sustain itself as a community.
We have seen most private land around Seeley revert to government ownership, so the growth potential of the community is capped. Forces continue in play to depopulate the town. Forest management is decreasing, making it harder to manage large wildfires. Rivers run through them the color of chocolate milk.
The impact of current septic systems on the lake seems speculative. Depends on whose definition of unacceptable impact you use. As I recall, our water plant was necessitated by overreaching federal regulations, not because the lake water went bad. But sure, future water quality deterioration from polluted groundwater is possible and preventable.
The sewer district is gerrymandered to ignore lakefront properties. It’s not the responsibility of a subset of residents to bear the guilt and cost of theoretical lake damage. Nearly every septic system in place was permitted by the county. That makes it the responsibility of the county.
It’s not that the voters don’t care. Seeley Lake is an old-folks town (median age 56 compared to 40 for Montana). It’s a hard place to make ends meet (median household income $38,000 compared to $43,000 for Missoula, $50,000 for Montana). I’ve seen many forced to leave their dreams here and move away. Why are we expected to saddle ourselves with an open-ended tax obligation that threatens to become too much to bear? Once we vote to proceed, accepting all future costs, we’re stuck. That’s what the voters have been saying. Seems no one is listening.
Governments often saddle constituencies with expensive mandates, like the current county septic permitting process. Such situations are sometimes addressed by making grants available, as we have seen. These grants are meant to help manage costs, not entice us into financial ruin.
Assuming the good people of Missoula County care deeply about the quality of water that flows from Seeley Lake through the county, they should be happy to help defray the cost of achieving their expectations, since they as a voting block force us to underwrite city open space, library, fair, museum, etc. Surely their heartfelt concern extends beyond spending other people’s money.
If Missoula County sold bonds backed by a small countywide mill levy for a “Clean Water” permanent fund, the bonds would certainly be of a higher grade than ones secured by strapped Seeley Lake property owners forced to foreclose/move away, leaving the county to pick up the tab anyway. The fund could also be available as a cash reserve for cost overruns and emergent problems elsewhere in the county. Example: a 10 mill countywide levy ($27/year for the average Seeley Lake property) would generate $2 million a year, $40 million over 20 years, leaving us to pay only an equitable one-time hookup fee.
We’re told a new sewer system would benefit everybody. OK then, everybody chip in. I think most folks in Seeley Lake favor a sewer system. Let’s vote on it again, this time on a proposal we can all get behind.
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