County still trying to keep Swan River access open

Maintaining access to the Swan River in Ferndale remains a priority for Lake County officials.

However, the fate of that popular river access is still undecided. Last spring, Lake County Commissioners temporarily closed the popular river access, which is between homes on Rainbow Drive in Ferndale.

The county closed the access due to concerns from neighbors and because cars parking along the road had become a safety issue. The closure was intended to be temporary, and while the issue was discussed it was agreed that the access would only be open on the weekend.

Despite many conversations over the winter about what to do with the site, Lake County is no closer to deciding what to do about the access.

The Lake County park board, which is volunteer, is in favor of finding a way to keep the access open. “Our goals are to build parks and trails not do away with them,” park board chairman Mike Roberts said.

Many of the problems at the site are similar, Roberts said, to issues they have at other public sites, including parking, litter, overuse, dogs, human waste, public safety, “rudeness and trespassing.”

“It seems like it only takes a few screwballs to ruin it for everyone,” he said.

 “We’ve gone over the Rainbow Drive Swan River Access issue over and over,” he wrote in an email to the Bigfork Eagle. “We’ve discussed the possibility of having people park elsewhere, using a shuttle service, building a walking/bike trail from the fishing access, adding signage, widening the road for more parking, charging for use, purchasing property for a parking lot, narrowing the gate of the entrance to allow walk in only, donating the access to Fish, Wildlife and Parks, to closing it down completely.

“Every one of these possible solutions seems to encourage another problem.”

Some of the board’s concerns with closing the site include the fear that people will climb the fence and use the access anyway, causing more problems with neighbors, or they will instead go to the Rainbow Drive bridge, which many people formerly used as a launching point and was even more hazardous.

Neighbors of the access have said that though the access was supposed to be closed during the week, people used it every day during the summer. They say they have continued to have problems with rude access users, trespassing, blocked driveways, and cars parked on the street and even some people defecating on private property.

The access about a 60-foot wide swath of county property that includes a small, paved turnaround and an unimproved access down a dirt bank to the river. There is a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks access about a half-mile downstream from the Rainbow Drive access, with an outhouse and dirt ramp to the river. Some river users say the state access cuts off a good portion of the fishing and whitewater.

The Rainbow Drive access was developed to help alleviate traffic at the Rainbow Drive bridge, where people used to put in for river recreation previously. While the parks board has been active in the conversation they will not be the entity that eventually makes a final decision. That responsibility lies with the Lake County commissioners, who will hear recommendations from the board.