Testing The Waters Family’s Ranch Was Turned Into A Lake By Last Spring’s Flooding; Now It May Be Preserved As Permanent Wetlands

For eight hours during the height of last May’s flooding, the amount of water pouring into Lake Coeur d’Alene dropped dramatically.

The reason: Water was gushing through a broken levee upstream along the St. Joe River. Mother Nature was busy creating a lake.

It’s still there.

The 1,200-acre lake covers most of the ranch owned by Clare Hepton of Greenacres and her family.

Whether “Lake Hepton” remains a lake could be up to the federal government. At the family’s request, the Natural Resources Conservation Service has ordered an appraisal of the property and may buy an easement to preserve the area as a wetland.

“We don’t have any idea at this point what the amount of dollars is going to be,” said district conservationist Mark Addy.

If the government can’t make an offer that satisfies the owners, Addy said, the private levee will be rebuilt.

Clare Hepton was hesitant to talk about the future of the property. She said she expects to know more in a couple of weeks.

The family has owned the farmland since 1949, she said. Renters were living there when the water rose.

“The farmhouse got ruined,” Hepton said.

After the levee gave way, leaving a 150-foot hole, Lake Coeur d’Alene stopped rising.

The lake level is controlled partly by the Post Falls dam, owned by Washington Water Power Co.

Gary Stockinger, WWP’s hydro operations engineer, calculated that the flow into the lake between midnight and 8 a.m. on May 16 was 50,500 cubic feet per second.

But between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., it was only 36,600 feet per second.

“I didn’t think much about it until I saw on TV that night that the dike broke through and 1,400 acres had been inundated,” he said.

Now, the new lake shimmers in the autumn sun. The St. Joe winds past, sandwiched along with the lake between state Highways 3 and 5. Blue mountains loom to the east.

Marsh grasses and ducks aren’t waiting for a real estate transaction to take up residence. “There’s tules out there already,” Addy said. “It has tremendous wildlife values.”

Wetlands are valuable for many reasons besides providing animal habitat. They absorb extra runoff, reducing flood danger in a watershed. They recycle nutrients by helping plants decompose. They recharge ground water supplies and filter sediment.

“The land mass of the United States once had 14 percent wetlands,” said Addy. “Now, it’s down to 5 percent.”

The Hepton property got high marks in a national ranking of wetlands that are available for the Wetlands Reserve Program and Emergency Watershed Protection Program, said Addy.

When the government buys a conservation easement, it has the right to use the property, Addy said. In this case, that means leaving it alone and letting nature take its course.

The Wetlands Reserve Program offers both permanent and 30-year easements. An easement rules out farming, Addy said, although the owner retains the right to keep other people off the land.

“He can use it for recreation. If he wants to enhance waterfowl habitat, he can. He can hunt.”

Conservation easements are one way to ease the headache of flood-prone property. People in the Bonners Ferry, Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene areas also have applied this year to take part in the Wetlands Reserve Program.

“Wetlands don’t have to be inundated. They can be soggy ground,” Addy said. “Usually, they come out of pasture.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo