Appeal filed in Glacier Park home case

The Flathead Conservation District and Friends of Montana Rivers and Streams have filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of a home built on private land along the banks of McDonald Creek in Glacier National Park.

In February,  U.S. Magistrate Kathleen DeSoto ruled in favor of homeowners John and Stacy Ambler of San Diego, California.

Once the home was largely built, the Flathead Conservation District, responding to a host of private complaints about the structure, found the home was in violation of the Montana Streambed Protection Act and ordered it removed. 

Friends of Montana Rivers and Streams represents many of those original complainants.

But DeSoto said the Conservation District lacked authority to enforce state law inside of Glacier National Park. 

The Park Service allowed the Ambler home to be built and even allowed it to be hooked into Park Service sewer and water, which serves Apgar Village.

The home is what’s known as an inholding, part of a subdivision that pre-dated the creation of Glacier in 1910.

The Park has dozens of inholdings, most of them along the shores of Lake McDonald. The Ambler home is just south of the lake, less than a half mile and is perched above McDonald Creek, which drains the lake.

DeSoto found that the state lacked jurisdiction because it ceded most authority over private lands in Glacier to the federal government a few years after Glacier was formed. The state did retain authority to tax private lands, but it did not retain the authority to enforce state environmental laws, like the Montana Streambed Protection Act, DeSoto ruled.

The Act requires review of any project that could disturb the banks of a stream in the state. The Amblers never applied for, or received a permit. They claimed the county planning office never told them they needed one when they first started building the home, which is literally pinned into the streambank by a concrete retaining wall.

Opening briefs in the appeal are due by May 28, with the Amblers responses due by June 27, according to court documents.

DeSoto may have left the door open on appeal when she noted that the Friends group argued that home also violated federal environmental laws. She said that argument was beyond the scope the case.

If the appeals court rules that federal law does apply, it could potentially send the matter back to the Park Service for a full environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The home currently is uncompleted.