Recreation News - Region 5

Tue Aug 18 13:10:57 MDT 2020

Flooding and wave erosion at Cooney State Park

BILLINGS – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is proposing to repair flooding and wave erosion to the shoreline along its Cottonwood Campground at Cooney State Park in Carbon County near Roberts.

The department issued an environmental assessment this week proposing work to repair and reinforce the bank next to the eroded campsites and along a park roadway. The work would include removing and salvaging current concrete riprap that has failed and using it to armor the shore along a roadway through the campground. It also calls for rebuilding the shoreline next to the campsites and reinforcing them with a new concrete-block mat that would allow vegetation to grow through it and help hold it in place. The project would cost an estimated $135,000.

The Cottonwood Campground has 10 sites, all of them along the waterfront. In 2019 floodwater filled the lake and ran into the campground, closing the park for a week and damaging three of the sites, which remain closed to public camping. Steep banks with undercutting are threatening the integrity of the road between campsites. The remaining campsites still are open, but suffer from continual soil erosion as wind and wave action batter the eastern shoreline of the reservoir.

The assessment says flood damage repairs will enable the park to re-open the currently closed campsites, prevent further soil erosion and undercutting of the banks within the campground and create a safer place for the public to access the water.  They are not expected to have negative cumulative effects on the physical or human environments.

Public comment on the proposal will be accepted until 5 p.m. Sept. 6, 2020, and can be emailed to myoshioka@mt.gov or mailed to:

Cooney State Park Facility Improvements

Cooney State Park

86 Lakeshore Road

Roberts, MT 59070