Condon Work Center considered for Forest Service conveyance

The Northern Region of the Forest Service, based in Missoula, is beginning the process of transferring its ownership of the Condon Work Center due to a backlog of maintenance on the property and associated costs.

Swan Valley Connections, a nonprofit focused on conservation and stewardship in the Swan Valley, has an office in the work center and leadership has been encouraged to start searching for a new office space with a tentative deadline to be out of the work center by March 2025. Swan Valley Connections is considering whether or not to pursue ownership of the property.

Both the Great American Outdoors Act, passed in 2020, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, provided funding to address deferred maintenance on national forest lands across the country, Kira Powell, public affairs officer with the Flathead National Forest, said.

"That just speaks to a nationwide need," Powell said.

Powell said it's unlikely money from those sources will be available for the work center this year, but that a wastewater treatment project at Holland Lake Lodge is likely to get some funding from the Great American Outdoors Act.

Chris Dowling, Swan Lake District Ranger, said over the years the buildings that make up the Condon Work Center have accrued over $1 million in maintenance costs for things like the septic system and aging infrastructure. Across the region, Dowling said there is $6 to $8 million dollars of deferred maintenance and an annual budget of $3 million to address that maintenance.

"We don't like the decision but I also understand the situation the Forest Service is in," Sara Lamar, managing director of education with Swan Valley Connections, said. "I don't believe this is out of "we hate Condon," or "we hate Swan Valley Connections." The Forest Service isn't excited about this and they express that this is hard on the community...but this is ultimately a decision coming from the region and because the region is looking at their expenses and trying to reduce what they see as extreme expenses that aren't providing necessary benefit."

Different strategies exist to address deferred maintenance, like putting funding the Forest Service is allocated toward maintenance or transferring ownership of land, also called conveying.

Dowling said the Forest Service made the decision to get out of deferred maintenance for the Condon Work Center and is now considering whether it will convey just the buildings and keep the land operating under a permit that would pass the maintenance responsibilities onto a new owner, or conveying both the buildings and the property, opening the land and buildings up to new ownership.

Dowling said the Forest Service's intent is to continue to partner with Swan Valley Connections for visitors' services and as a place for the public to go to find information.

"We would like to see the conveyance be a benefit to the public such as conveying to county, state, or a nonprofit that has public benefit associated," Dowling said at a June Swan Valley Community Council meeting.

Two hundred and fifty acres are designated for administrative use for the Forest Service off Highway 83 in Condon, which includes an air strip. Only the 15 acres across the highway from the air strip that encompass the work center are being considered for conveyance.

There is a high-density of culturally modified trees on the Condon Work Center property, Lamar said. These trees have strips of bark torn away that in some cases date back hundreds of years. The Indigenous people who lived and traveled through this land ate the cambium behind the bark of Ponderosa pines and used the visual signs on the trees to represent safe passage through an area full of grizzly bears and enemy tribes.

Dowling said he wasn't sure if or how many of these trees were in the 15-acre conveyance area, but that the Forest Service will be working with their heritage resource specialist through the process and that the preference is to not convey any land that contains those trees.

Kevin Askan, with the tribal preservation office for the Confederated Salish and Kooteani Tribes, said these trees and the Condon area are hugely important to the tribes.

Culturally modified trees often indicate a longer-use area - made up of plenty of fresh water, food, medicinal gathering and hunting opportunities - which were important in the development of trailways and for cultural seasonal landscape usage, Askan said.

Scarred trees were like billboards, Askan said - signs that an area could be lived in for a long time.

Before a final decision is made, an appraisal process will occur and the different types of conveyance will be evaluated. Dowling said it's still very early in a process that could take several years.

Historically, the Condon Work Center was created as part of an expansion of the Condon Ranger Station in 1958. The ranger station used to be housed off Condon Loop Road in 1913 in what Forest Service now uses as a rental cabin. Local youth crews would work out of the ranger station to work on trails and other projects and fire crews would stay in the bunk houses on the property.

In 1973, the Swan Lake and Condon Ranger Districts were combined and the district ranger office moved to Bigfork. An earlier iteration of Swan Valley Connections - called the Swan Ecosystem Center - advocated for keeping the group's office in the Condon Work Center to maintain a connection between the Forest Service and the Condon community, especially considering about 90% of the land around Condon is Forest Service land, Lamar said.

The Swan Ecosystem Center moved into offices in the Condon Work Center in 1997, after the Forest Service announced the pending closure of the work center two years earlier, under an agreement with the Flathead National Forest - the forest could host meetings at the center and Swan Ecosystem Center could share information it received from the national forest to the public in the name of transparency, something that became tried a couple summers ago.

When the owner of Holland Lake Lodge, about ten miles south of the work center, planned to sell to Powdr, a company that owns and operates ski resorts in the United States and Canada, a group rooted in the Condon area formed to push back against the potential development of the lodge, concerned that development could change the character of the valley.

Christian Wohlfeil, the owner of Holland Lake Lodge and holder of the lodge's special use permit, ultimately withdrew his offer to Powdr, but along the way many in the Condon area felt the public process was much cloudier than they would have liked. Lamar sees the possibility for some similarities in the tensions felt during the Holland Lake Lodge process and the trajectory for the Condon Work Center.

"What's different here is the Condon Work Center could actually become private land and that's, I think, an even worse outcome," Lamar said - worse than having the permit for Holland Lake Lodge going to people that don't support the community, which was a concern of Save Holland Lake.

"I would like to see...the Forest Service working with the community and do(ing) something with the community so we can utilize (the work center) for many different things we're looking for - housing for seasonal workers, teachers, law enforcement housing, keeping (Swan Valley Connections) there. We'd like to see the Forest Service try to work with us if possible," Grace Siloti, Swan Valley Community Council member and Save Holland Lake member, said at a June Swan Valley Community Council meeting.

Those with questions about Swan Valley Connections' operations and services can reach out to Lamar at sara@svconnections.org. People can comment to the Forest Service regarding the Condon Work Center by calling 406-837-7500 or mailing written comments to 200 Ranger Station Road, Bigfork, Montana 59911. More public engagement opportunities will be available as the process continues.