Group Says Flood Repairs Damage N. Idaho Streams

Bulldozers making flood repairs are destroying sections of many North Idaho streams, a Boise environmental group said Monday.

Idaho Rivers United has asked Gov. Phil Batt “to rein in the bulldozers” and prevent future “out-of-control stream alterations.”

“Fish and wildlife, which can survive floods, cannot live in denuded, muddy channels,” said Executive Director Wendy Wilson. “Science was lost in the haste to get the bulldozers in the streams, and the resultant destruction will haunt Idahoans for decades.”

Batt spokeswoman Amy Kleiner said the governor hasn’t received the letter. She said there have been problems with rivers filling with gravel, prompting the work.

“But he realizes there were some problems with just dredging them (the stream beds),” she said, adding that the governor is consulting closely with the state Department of Water Resources to prevent permanent stream damage.

Soon after the February floods, Idaho waived the usual 60-day notice for stream-alteration permits in cases requiring “immediate action to protect life and property.”

Emergency officials feared spring runoff would cascade down, creating a second round of flooding. They rushed to rebuild dikes and bulldoze gravel out of streams to make them deeper. But little thought is going into the work, which actually may worsen future floods and harm fish, Wilson said.

Stream channels specialist Ken Knoblock of the Department of Water Resources said some of the work was “more than maybe needed to be done.”

“There were some cases that, yeah, it was bulldozers from one end of the stream to another,” he said.

But on Feb. 27, the department again began requiring people to get permits to alter streams, he said. The filing fee is being waived, as well as the requirement that the permit be filed 60 days before the work begins. He said the department soon will begin inspecting the work.

, DataTimes