Restoration and Community--Lewistown, Fergus County
Lewistown Restoration
Big Spring Creek is hidden on the edge of the prairie in central Montana. It emerges from the Big Snowy Mountains and maintains the kind of cold-water flows that provide ideal habitat for rainbow and brown trout.
Big Spring Creek is the lifeblood of Lewistown--the Fergus County seat. The creek is a symbol of the good and healthy way of life that can be found east of the mountains where one can find pure, untreated drinking water, remarkable fishing, and the solace of a natural landscape.
More than a century ago, developers rerouted a portion of the bending stream into straight channels and tunnels to make room for housing, transportation, and industry.
One channelized reach of the creek is located just upstream of town in an area known as Brewery Flats, which recently benefited from remarkable restoration project that drew on the expertise and enthusiasm of everyone from local school children to government officials.
At various times from the early 1900s to the mid-1980s, Brewery Flats was the site of a railroad yard, coal oil refinery, feedlot, a brewery, and mine.
By 1985 Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks purchased 23 acres of the Brewery Flats area to create a new fishing access site.
Soon innovative partnerships and community cooperation emerged to restore Big Spring Creek. A coalition of local citizens, educators, civic groups, and state and federal agencies formed the Brewery Flats Planning and Development Committee and determine that the restoration project would cost $365,000.
Funds were drawn from the Federal Sport Fish Restoration Program, state hunting and fishing license dollars from FWP’s Future Fisheries Improvement Program, and federal highway monies from the Montana Department of Transportation. Other partners included Fergus County, the Society of American Foresters, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Fergus County Conservation District. Additionally, volunteers from local schools and members of the Montana Conservation Corps contributed hundreds of hours of labor.
But there were even more restorative developments in the works. Over the past 10 years, the Montana Departments of Environmental Quality, Agriculture, Commerce, and Natural Resources and Conservation, contributed grant funds and loans that created more than $10 million for Fergus County revitalization, including funds for the Brewery Flats cleanup. DNRC’s Reclamation and Development grant program alone provided $650,000 to clean up heavy metal contaminated soil in Brewery Flats, which was in turn matched with two federal EPA Brownfields grants totaling $378,400 to make up the majority of the Brewery Flats funding package.
There is no doubt that these restoration funds provided good paying jobs that continue to simulate the Lewistown economy. The revitalized community also boosted the confidence of town leaders who now know well that Lewistown can compete with any community in the West as an attractive and desirable place to live and do business.
Today, the restored streamside vegetation and nearby wetlands have even withstood recent spring floods, so vital to the health of streams and floodplains.
The Brewery Flats project has also encouraged local residents to start work on other sites. Community leaders are now focusing on revitalizing other abandoned industrial areas with the hope of extending the public greenway throughout the Brewery Flats area. And the community is exploring more ambitious projects including restoring more of Big Spring Creek through Lewistown, creating trail systems, and even downtown revitalizations and restorations.
Once again, Lewistown's restoration successes reveal the importance and need for more integrated restoration planning at state, county, and community levels. In Lewistown and other Montana communities, the economic benefits of restorative development show that integrated restoration provides the state with ample opportunities to do what’s right by doing what’s good for our environment and our communities.
