New Trail Would Link Cheney, Fish Lake 3-1/2-Mile Hiking, Biking Path Still Faces Environmental Challenge

Cheney city officials hope to build a 3.5-mile hiking and biking trail from Cheney to Fish Lake this summer.

Construction will start within 60 days if a challenge by two property owners is dismissed next week.

Proposed by the state Parks and Recreation Commission, the 12-foot-wide asphalt trail would run north and south along an abandoned railroad bed.

The work could be done by fall, said Don MacDonald, Cheney’s project manager.

“This would be an excellent trail system,” MacDonald said.

The path would link up with a 10-mile trail the city of Spokane plans from near downtown to Fish Lake. When that trail eventually is connected to the Centennial Trail, bikers, hikers and others could travel directly from Idaho to Cheney, MacDonald said.

The only opponents to Cheney’s proposal are property owners Mitch Smith and his father, Donald Smith.

Mitch Smith said he’s not necessarily against the trail, but contends the city did not prepare a full environmental study on the plan.

The trail would run along Minnie Creek, which flows from the city of Cheney’s sewage treatment plant north toward Queen Lucas Lake. Smith’s father, Donald, owns that lake, which is a half-mile north of Fish Lake.

Mitch Smith said the city hasn’t thoroughly studied what effect the paved trail will have on Minnie Creek. The creek runs on both sides of the old rail bed, which was blasted through the hard basalt plains in the late 1800s.

“So what will the state do when high runoff in spring floods the trail? Will the parks people have to keep spending money maintaining it?” Smith said.

He believes the trail will lead to more sediment in the creek, which would impact Queen Lucas Lake.

City officials said studies indicate the paved trail will not create problems along the creek.

“I don’t oppose the trail,” Smith said. “In fact, I’m usually on the other side of environment issues. But again, it’s the urban people who are happy to get out and enjoy nature, and they don’t see the consequences on the owners.”

Cheney officials held a public hearing about the trail three weeks ago. A city of Spokane hearings officer ran that meeting and is expected to make a decision next week.

If he rules the trail can proceed, Mitch Smith said he and his father have one last option - a possible court challenge.

MacDonald said building the trail will cost $513,000. About 80 percent of that will come from a federal highway budget grant.

The state parks commission will maintain and manage the trail, planning eventually to extend it south toward the Tri-Cities.

Cheney agreed to build the trail, MacDonald added, because it also is constructing an underground effluent pipe along the railroad bed. That pipe will carry treated waste water from Cheney’s sewage treatment plant.

If the city of Cheney built the trail, the parks commission would not oppose the effluent pipe, MacDonald said.

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