In Gallatin Gateway, Battle Rages Over Proposed 'Glampground' on Gallatin River

GALLATIN GATEWAY, Montana – This small town sits astride one of the most celebrated stretches of water in the country—not far from where A River Runs Through It was filmed and where wildlife watchers, fly-fishing anglers, kayakers and rafters bask in the glory of this blue-ribbon stream.

The Gallatin River starts in Yellowstone National Park and runs 115 miles to Three Forks, Montana, where its confluence with the Jefferson and Madison rivers forms the mighty Missouri. Along its way, the Gallatin winds through open meadows and dense forest before passing beneath the gneiss and limestone walls of Gallatin Canyon. The river is a crown jewel in southwest Montana, revered by locals, and Congress is currently considering a Wild and Scenic designation that would protect 39 miles of the upper Gallatin along with nearly 300 additional river miles across the state.

But for all its glory, the Gallatin faces a set of growing challenges that stand to transform it: The upper section, from Yellowstone National Park to Spanish Creek, was labeled “impaired” in May by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality due to neon green algal blooms appearing along the riverbed each summer since 2018. It’s also impacted by the explosive growth in Big Sky and the Yellowstone Club, whose wastewater in the past has emptied into it, and Bozeman bringing throngs of users to the water’s edge.

But emerging over the past few years near Gallatin Gateway, a development has been proposed that some see as both a blight and a dangerous precedent.

Approximately eight river miles downstream from the “impaired” portion of the Gallatin in the Spanish Creek area, a proposed glampground has fueled a legal battle that’s forcing Gallatin County and now a district court judge to weigh two tenets of Montana Legislature: the right for its citizens to do business in the Treasure State, and their right to clean water and “a healthful environment” as laid out in the state Constitution. The clash is pitting conservation groups and Gallatin Gateway residents concerned over the river’s health against a Bozeman developer who wants to build a glampground project on 16 acres near its banks.

“Not only are we loving the Gallatin to death, but we're also taking actions that we know are damaging to the river and we're proceeding with them anyway,” said Scott Bosse, regional director in the Northern Rockies for the nonprofit American Rivers. “Obviously, the nutrient pollution around Big Sky is a very serious issue, [but] in many ways the lower Gallatin River in the valley is in more trouble than the upper Gallatin.”

Flowing out of Gallatin Canyon sidewinding east of Bozeman, the river is annually subject to dewatering pressure as it passes through vast ag land in Gallatin Gateway and increasing numbers of development projects. “We continue to build all over the floodplain of the Gallatin River,” Bosse said.

Jeff Pfeil was issued a floodplain permit in November 2021 to build Riverbend, a glamping project featuring 58 sites consisting of nonpermanent structures for accommodations. Conestoga wagons and teepees are in the plans, each with its own bathroom, on a 16-acre island between two channels of the Gallatin; in part, their development is sited literally in the middle of the river.

The permit was issued after the Gallatin County Commission received 335 public comments, mostly in opposition to the project, Pfeil admits, including a petition with 1,062 signatures, according to court documents. The glampground has become a flashpoint for profound growth-related changes happening in the once bucolic Gallatin Valley. And, with other glampground proposals proliferating in wild areas around Greater Yellowstone and the West, this one is being closely watched.

Talk to people in Gallatin Gateway and it’s difficult to find residents who think the glampground is a good idea. In fact, the project has some folks up in arms. Six entities appealed the permit decision: two individuals along with nonprofits Protect the Gallatin River, Trout Unlimited, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and American Rivers. The appellants say the public comment period was too short—it was offered over the holidays from Dec. 6-28, 2020, a week longer than the 15-days required minimum—and claim Pfeil is building in an area that will harm the river’s health and jeopardize wildlife on the island.

But they say its impacts will ripple much farther. “It's an absolutely awful project,” said Bosse, who’s been in the natural resource management sector for two decades, spending part of his career as director of aquatic conservation with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and prior as part of a group saying dams on the Lower Snake River should be razed to save salmon. “That cottonwood forest along the lower Gallatin River is extremely important for all sorts of critters from bald eagles to moose to bears to deer. Whenever you build a development and you put people and you put roads in a cottonwood forest along a river, that's terrible for wildlife.”

Pfeil, an arborist who owned Bozeman Tree Service for more than 20 years, says he’s providing an opportunity for folks to get outside and experience camping along the scenic river.

“As far as zoning and land use and ability to connect it to water and sewer, to me this [glampground project] was the lowest impact of possible use,” Pfeil said following a June 7 district court hearing in Bozeman. “One that connects people with nature, which has been our objective the whole time.”

The appellants aren’t buying it. They argue it’s antithetical to the values of river conservation in an ecosystem known around the world for its wild values. And, they say, past is prologue. The West Gallatin River has flooded over the years near the location of the proposed glampground, and future flooding with Pfeil’s project in place could affect the ecological health of the river, to say nothing of the spirit that makes it special. Developing a glampground on the island, they say, is an affront to the very values Pfeil claims to champion.

“The island is a wonderful place to be, with many trees, lush riparian vegetation, two remarkable spring creeks, great fishing, deer visiting daily, eagles, grouse, pheasants, turkeys, beavers … and occasionally the guest appearance of a bear, moose, or lion,” appellant Dick Shockley, who has lived on the island for nearly 50 years, wrote in 2022, joining the nonprofits and fellow Gateway resident Peter Stein in the appeal. “I am opposed to such an intrusive development impact on the floodplain, with certain adverse impacts on the West Gallatin River itself.”

A trail camera set up just downstream of the proposed glampground captured this bobcat. Video courtesy Holly Pippel.

Pfeil came up with the glampground idea during an Oregon camping trip with his wife in summer 2018. In a neighboring site, a man was watching a football game on TV outside his camper. “I'm like, this is not camping,” Pfeil said. “But this is what America thinks is camping. So I came home and said, ‘Hey, we're gonna build a campground for people in Bozeman because there really isn't one, and it's going to be someplace that they can really, truly experience camping.’”

His original plan included Airstream trailers and tiny homes but changed to Conestogas and teepees for the more natural look of canvas and wood, Pfeil said. County regulations require the accommodation units to be movable in the event of a flood and Pfeil says pickup trucks or tractors would be able to tow all the units to safety should the Gallatin’s waters rise to flood stage.

The county commission added a seasonal addendum to the permit requiring the glampground to close from November 1 to July 1 when the Gallatin is prone to flooding due to melting snow running into the river. Indicating his willingness to compromise, Pfeil says he and his attorney offered to remove all sites and accommodations from the floodplain, but the offer was rejected. “It would have cut the project in half, just using 3-and-a-half to 4 acres out of 16,” Pfeil said.

Hydrologists say riparian areas, or river corridors, rank among the richest wildlife habitat in Greater Yellowstone and islands function as places of refuge for species that don’t do well with intense human pressure. They note there are plenty of other places to build an industrial strength glampground but that there’s only one Gallatin.

“When you go building on an island, essentially you’re putting a stake in the ground that says, 'OK, this island is now a permanent thing,'” said Jeff Dunn, a Bozeman-based water resource specialist with the civil planning and engineering firm WGM Group. “So in the future, you're preventing those processes of channel meandering to be completely natural.”

The proposed glampground is not an isolated development unto itself. Rivers throughout Greater Yellowstone, including the Gallatin, are lined in places by private homes, some set not far back from the water’s edge. Many say it’s a result of weak county planning and zoning regulations. Gallatin County is only about 30 percent zoned through 22 “piecemeal” zoning districts, as Dunn says, that require river setbacks for development. Gallatin Gateway, however, has no zoning regulations.

In fact, one reason why the Gallatin was recently declared impaired is based on the suspicion that old septic systems are failing and leaking nutrients into the river, adding to algae blooms during hot summers when the water is low. One point often raised is not that opposition to glampgrounds by environmentalists are invalid, but that the same environmental groups have been largely missing in action when it comes to engaging in county planning and zoning issues. Some are taking the issue into their own hands.

Peggy Lehmann, a Gateway resident of more than 40 years, founded Protect the Gallatin River in 2021 in response to the planned glampground and the nonprofit is currently monitoring water and trash cleanups on a nine-mile stretch of the West Gallatin. At some point, she hopes to partner with the Sacajawea Audubon Society to lead nature walks in the area and she and her husband are currently in talks with Montana Land Reliance to put their 56 acres adjacent to the proposed glampground area in conservation easement.

Lehmann wonders how Pfeil plans to remove wagons and teepees even if the accommodations are parked on ground above the floodplain. One road enters and exits the property, and it lies beneath the high-water mark. If the Gallatin floods, the road will flood, and floods aren’t always predictable.

“It’s not like the Hyalite Creek floodplain, or the Bozeman Creek floodplain,” she said, adding concerns that seismic activity in the area or river scouring during a flood could damage pipes carrying wastewater, natural gas and fiberoptics from the glampground site underneath the river. “This floodplain is dangerous. I don’t think it should be ignored.”

Pfeil contends the island glampground site has never flooded and that even if it did, he’d have time to move the wagons away from the danger zone. “It would take a cataclysmic flood to take that wagon and wash it down the river,” he said, adding that each Conestoga sits on wheels lifting the base 2.5 feet above the ground and that he could remove the wagons in under an hour. “Campsites and campgrounds are allowed in the floodplain and the reason why is that the accommodations that people are utilizing are easily removed.”

Critics say Pfeil is merely trying to find a rhetorical justification when, if he really cared about the Gallatin and wildlife along its corridor he would not be pushing ahead, whether the river floods or not. “I think [the Riverbend glampground] is the worst case of greenwashing that I've ever seen in all my years of working in conservation,” said Bosse of American Rivers.

Gallatin County’s chief planner Sean O’Callaghan, who also serves as the county’s floodplain administrator, issued the permit for the glampground based on 2017 floodplain regulations since Pfeil applied for the permit in 2020, a year before the regs were updated with more stringent requirements. Since Gallatin Gateway has no zoning provisions, stream setbacks are not mandated by zoning and the glampground site is not subject to subdivision review, O’Callaghan said, though he believes setbacks are important.

“In general, I'm a fan of watercourse setbacks in some form or fashion,” he said, referencing the minimum distance development must be from a stream or riparian area. “There’s a lot of human activity that can impair a stream pretty quickly if there's not some respect and deference given to that watercourse.”

Previous county commissions rejected what many believed was sensible zoning over pressure from property owners who claimed free market forces ought to prevail. Now, some local groups say current county zoning regulations are toothless and are working to change floodplain directives at the county level.

Trout Unlimited and the Gallatin Watershed Council recently testified that the Gallatin County Commission should require prospective developers to consider channel migration zone maps and watercourse setbacks of up to 300 feet when ruling on floodplain permit applications.

In part, efforts to convince the commission to update floodplain regulations have been successful. Yet at some point, river protection advocates argue, development pressure combined with a changing climate adds up and the effects will leave the wild character of the Gallatin transformed. They see the glampground decision as a test of values and a turning point.

“What’s too much?” said Wendy Weaver, a former Bozeman engineer and the current executive director of Montana Freshwater Partners in Livingston. “Is the sky the limit? Are we going to continue to allow unchecked pressures on these places? They're going to degrade over time and we're already seeing that in so many ways.”

In April, county commissioners approved changes to the regulations that included language requiring developers take into account channel migration zone maps when considering construction projects in the floodplain. Water channels like those in the Gallatin shift over time and due to events such as erosion and flooding, says Dunn, the water resource specialist, and these maps provide direction for where developers should or should not build. It’s a positive step in protecting rivers and riparian areas, according to Dunn, but it still lacks teeth.

“It’s not regulatory at all,” he said, “but it should be. From a river conservationist’s perspective, this would help us a ton if we regulated development to the channel migration zone and not to the mapped 100-year floodplain.”

Weaver believes Pfeil sidestepped subdivision regulations by making the structures nonpermanent and is concerned over the precedent the glampground’s approval might have on other rivers and riparian areas.

“Seeing this unprecedented growth, pressure on our natural resources and our rivers; allowing this to happen, what does that mean? Are we going to start seeing these things pop up all over?” Weaver said. “This type of development, in my opinion, in absolutely no way, shape or form should be allowed. We should not be developing in or near the floodplain, corridors or channel migration.”

At the June 7 District Court hearing in Bozeman, attorneys representing Pfeil, Gallatin County and Protect the Gallatin River made arguments for their respective cases. Each lawyer spoke for approximately 30 minutes in front of Judge Peter Ohman who will offer a ruling on whether or not to void the floodplain permit for the glampground. There is no timeline for Judge Ohman’s decision.

For his part, Pfeil says he’s put in too much time, energy and money to let the property go, and believes in his right to operate a business. “When does a person’s property rights mean something?” he said. “I've tried to find a way around going to court but, unfortunately, they're determined to shut the whole thing down no matter what.”

Peggy Lehmann believes it never should have been proposed at all. She says her nonprofit’s battle is one for the river. “It's not that we are against glampgrounds,” she said. “We are against development like this in the floodplain. It's very bad for the river and we can't stress it enough. Can money really mean that much to ruin the river?”