Proposed expansion 'symptomatic' of what is happening across the west

By Gwyneth Hyndman

The proposed expansion of Holland Lake Lodge by a Utah-based company - and the proposal’s subsequent denial by the Flathead National Forest before Thanksgiving - is a process that is being watched across the country, a long-time journalist and author said this month, following the Flathead National Forest’s direction to POWDR that a new master plan must be drawn up to move forward.

“What’s happening in Holland Lake with a private company seeking to expand on public land is something that is happening across the west,” said Todd Wilkinson, a Bozeman-based writer who has covered the west for publications like National Geographic and the Christian Science Monitor for 35 years and is the founder of Mountain Journal. 

This is most obvious in commercial ski areas, Wilkinson said, but led to a critical question:

“Do federal agencies have an obligation to help expand a private company to bolster profits?”

He pointed out that the same conversation is happening in Wyoming, as the Bridger Teton National Forest allowed a proposal by Snow King Resort to move forward, expanding resort operations onto public land.

The Grand Targhee Resort - in the mountains above Teton Valley, Idaho and 45 miles from Jackson Hole, Wyo. is also moving forward with an expansion into the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.

“There’s an intense and rising pressure from outdoor recreation on public land,” Wilkinson said, adding that these areas were seeing a higher displacement of wildlife. Montana was a fresh frontier that was now sought-after.

“In the wake of COVID and shows like ‘Yellowstone,’ we’ve seen an unprecedented movement here,” he said. “The exodus [to Montana] has soared and it’s expected to continue to soar because of climate change. It’s not just now.”

Save Holland Lake Lodge volunteer Bill Lombardi said that following the November announcement that POWDR’s master plan had been turned down by the Flathead National Forest, their group had been fielding questions about how the group - which had pointed out flaws in the master plan and lobbied for public support that the plan be dismissed - had been able to accomplish their goal.

This was evident when Lombardi spoke to other attendees at the recent Montana Outdoor Awards in December, he said.

“Everyone was asking -  ‘wow, what happened?’” Lombardi said. “People were amazed at what was going on and wanted to know how it worked.” Lombardi said it had just been a group of well-organized volunteers who - despite various political backgrounds - united for a cause. “Basically, people just came together and said ‘no.’”

Lombardi echoed Wilkinson’s thoughts on Holland Lake being part of a larger fight.

“This is bigger than Holland Lake - this is symptomatic of what is happening in the west.”

POWDR vice president of communications Stacey Hutchinson has said that the company did not see this as FFS official response in November as a denial or a rejection – “but an opportunity to reset and resubmit to address inaccuracies and inconsistencies.”

Last week Hutchinson said there was no follow-up statements on this time on their progress that differed from their statement in November, in response to the FFS’s position, stating that the company would be resubmitting their plan for future investment and infrastructure improvements at Holland Lake Lodge that would be “very much in line with our previously submitted Master Development Plan.” They would be supporting the Forest Service’s recommendation to conduct an environmental assessment, she said.

Lombardi and Save Holland Lake members issued a statement in late December stating that despite an initial victory, the fight is not over.

 “POWDR says it plans to fix its numerous errors and resubmit the proposal on the same scale. We’ll continue to oppose such a massive development that is totally out of scale for such a sensitive ecosystem.”

Wilkinson said Holland Lake was also being watched as an important big-picture question was addressed. 

“Montana is exceptional,” he said. “It’s superior to other parts of the west that are losing their species. Some of Montana’s wilderness study areas are wilder than a high percentage of national parks across the country.

“So we have to ask: Does outdoor recreation translate into better wildlife conservation?”

Wilkinson said in many areas of the west, it was leading to a displacement of wildlife.

Holland Lake - and the surrounding communities - were part of “a microcosm that raises a lot of questions that are being asked across the west.”

In response to an opinion piece published in Mountain Journal by Save Holland Lake Lodge, Montana State University political science professor Dr. Jerry Johnson commented that Holland Lake “was indicative of two ‘movements’ that will hopefully sweep across Montana and the Rockies.

 “First is the NIMBY attitude of locals. The Not in My Back Yard attitude is usually seen as a pejorative term suggesting selfishness,” Johnson commented. “An alternative view is locals watching out for their own interests when no one else will. In this case it was a corporate developer that sought to radically change the backyard of local residents. As a friend once told me – if we all look out for our own backyard we end up taking care of everything. 

“I hope NIMBYism spreads like wildfire across our state where mostly out of state developers continue to exploit Montana’s resources for their own gain and leave the rest of us holding the bag of higher taxes and degraded landscapes.”