Columbia Falls: wastewater capacity limitations

The City of Columbia Falls has recently provided more detail about its wastewater (sewer) capacity and how this will impact future growth in the city through the current 2045 planning period. We will summarize the city’s assessment in this blog.

So far, the city has hosted an open house (November 20, 2025), the Planning Commission has discussed this issue twice (December 11, 2025 and January 8, 2026), and the City Council has discussed this issue twice (December 15, 2025 and January 5, 2026).

The Columbia Falls City Council will again discuss this issue and make recommendations regarding upcoming development applications on Tuesday, January 20, 2026.

Click here to view the meeting packet.

Where things stand currently:

• The current wastewater treatment plant has a capacity of 0.71 million gallons per day (MGD).

  • This can support a service population of 8,174 people.

  • The current service population includes the Meadow Lake Water & Sewer district and has an estimated service population of 6,280 people.

  8,174 - 6,280 = 1,894

• Thus, the wastewater treatment plant, in its current form, can accommodate a population increase of 1,894 people before it will need to be upgraded to add additional capacity.

Approved and anticipated development applications:

• The city has previously approved applications for developments that would add an additional 720 people to the system, if built.

1,894 - 720 = 1,174 people of remaining capacity

• The city is anticipating development applications to come forward in the near-future that, if fully built out, would add an additional 1,380 people to the system.

  • This means that the city has less capacity available than future developments are likely to request in the near-term. Because of this, not all of these developments will be able to be approved at these projected build-out numbers.

so, what is a city to do?

The city manager has recommended the following actions that the city council will consider during its January 20, 2026 meeting:

• Allocate capacity for up to 1,500 additional people, reserving ~400 people of additional capacity for future projects.

• Consider a moratorium for large-scale developments that are not currently anticipated (see list below).

Essentially, the city may look to prioritize types of homes that it would like to see built to meet workforce and current resident needs over the needs of more wealthy, “lifestyle” buyers. We generally find that this is a good way to approach this capacity problem in the short-term.

During its January 8, 2026 meeting, the Planning Commission discussed the following themes pertinent to this discussion:

• Prioritization of multi-family housing, townhomes, and attached units. We agree that this is best practice.

  • Lowest priority for large-lot or high-cost single-family subdivisions.

• Prioritization for development that is infill (within existing city boundaries) or adjacent to existing infrastructure. We agree that this is best practice.

• Preservation of meaningful reserve capacity to provide flexibility for future mixed-use, commercial, and/or innovative housing proposals that are better aligned with long-term community needs. We agree that this is best practice.

• Exploration of incentive-based tools for affordable housing. We agree that this is best practice.

• Concerns about broad or indefinite restrictions related to moratoriums. We agree that this is best practice. Moratoriums can have a paradoxical effect of making homes even more expensive due to artificially constrained supply; prioritization of certain home types, as noted above, is a more effective strategy.