Priest Lake landmark in limbo

PRIEST LAKE, Idaho – East Twin Island is a veritable dewdrop in Priest Lake – a tiny hump of land that grows a few pine trees and stirs Dean Stevens’ protective instincts.

“It’s a beautiful little island,” said Stevens, a former Bonner County commissioner. “There are trees that eagles perch in to fish, and the number of those places is dwindling. … I regret not giving it directly to the Forest Service when I was in office.”

Five years ago, Bonner County relinquished ownership of the island by trading it for industrial land elsewhere in the county. Now in private hands, East Twin Island’s new owner is trying to develop a building site on the rocky isle.

JD Lumber Inc. of Priest River has applied for a state permit to run electrical, sewer and phone lines to East Twin Island through a half-mile-long pipe buried in the lake bottom.

While neighbors raise concerns about the potential for contamination in one of the nation’s most pristine large lakes, JD Lumber President Jeff Weimer said he’d be glad to sell the island back to the public – if only he could find a buyer.

“It should be in the public trust,” Weimer said. “…That would be my dream come true.”

But neither the U.S. Forest Service nor The Nature Conservancy is interested in purchasing the half-acre island, whose property value is assessed at $531,600.

JD Lumber acquired East Twin Island two years ago from another private owner as payment for a debt. Now, Weimer said, the company needs to recoup the island’s value. Selling it as a waterfront lot – a valuable commodity at Priest Lake – is the logical way to do that, he said.

Others, however, are skeptical of Weimer’s motives.

Weimer signed an agreement to run the sewer pipe to a septic drain field on private property on Priest Lake’s east shore. If the permit to run the pipe under the lake is approved by the state, the septic agreement requires JD Lumber to give the Forest Service 90 days to purchase East Twin Island.

Pretty interesting, said Mark Sprengel, executive director of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance in Priest River. If the permit is approved, Weimer will “graciously offer the taxpayers an opportunity to buy the land at its newly inflated fair market value,” Sprengel said.

Gerry Rose, who owns a vacation cabin at Priest Lake, also expressed skepticism in a letter to the Idaho Department of Lands. “…JD Lumber is actually trying to recruit people to call officials and push the government into purchasing the island,” Rose wrote in his letter.

Dave O’Brien, a staff officer for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, said he hasn’t spoken directly with Weimer. But the previous owner, Ford Willey, had approached the Forest Service about buying the island.

“He never set a price, but he gave strong implications that it was somewhere in the $1 million range,” O’Brien said.

Priest Lake’s other islands belong to the Forest Service. Trying to buy East Twin, however, would mean paying out real estate development values, O’Brien said. Adding grizzly habitat is a higher priority for the Forest Service, he said.

East Twin Island doesn’t fit The Nature Conservancy’s acquisition profile, either, said Steve Grourke, donor relations manager in Coeur d’Alene.

“Priest Lake is obviously the crown jewel of North Idaho,” Grourke said. But like the Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy focuses on larger parcels, he said.

Weimer plans to submit a new version of his pipeline application to the state, addressing concerns about the potential for leaks and the need for monitoring. When the new application is turned in, the Idaho Department of Lands will reopen a 30-day public comment period.

Cameron Phillips, a Coeur d’Alene attorney who’s owned land at Priest Lake for nearly 20 years, said most neighbors are opposed to the pipeline. Fifteen years ago, east shore residents hooked up to the Diamond Park-Paradise Point Sewer District to protect Priest Lake’s water quality.

“There’s an immediate, visceral reaction to this project for a private cabin,” Phillips said. “I have a picture of East Twin Island on my computer as a screen saver. It’s pretty nice as it is.”

East Twin Island has pingponged between public and private ownership. At the turn of the century, the Great Northern Railroad received the island as a land grant. Later, it was a holding of Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Co.

“It was never developed, never logged,” said Stevens, the former Bonner County commissioner. “Young people camped out overnight there.”

Bonner County got the island in 1990, when Willey was involved in a partnership that donated it to the county for a tax write-off. More than a decade later, the county traded East Twin Island and several other parcels back to Willey in return for an old mill site in Priest River. Willey eventually deeded the island to JD Lumber.

“I thought it was safe from development,” Stevens said. “I didn’t even dream that some board along the way would put it back in private hands.”