Mine to help fund parks

BOISE – Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, the prospective new U.S. secretary of Interior, has struck a deal with lawmakers to fund his park-improvement initiative in part by starting a gravel-mining project in a state park.

The $26.5 million park-funding plan approved by the Legislature’s joint budget committee Wednesday includes $15 million to be raised from gravel mining at Eagle Island State Park west of Boise. Lawmakers and the governor say the gravel would be dug up only if needed to build park improvements at the riverside park.

Mike Journee, Kempthorne’s press secretary, said the deal – suggested by legislators and the state Department of Parks and Recreation, and not in the governor’s original proposal – doesn’t suggest anything about Kempthorne’s feelings about mining in parks.

“It’s a single park in a multipark state park initiative,” Journee said. “In this certain case, it makes sense.”

Idaho Conservation League Program Director Justin Hayes agreed, especially given that Kempthorne appointed him to the commission that will oversee the Eagle Island park renovation project.

“We do not want to be part of anything that ruins that park,” Hayes said. “This is not a gold mine in the middle of Yosemite.”

Hayes said there’s an important distinction between national parks, which Kempthorne would have a say in overseeing if confirmed as Interior Secretary, and state parks.

“National parks are designed to preserve these areas,” Hayes said. “Our state parks are more recreational facilities.”

He added, “That’s a really well-used park now, and it’s going to be more used in the future as this valley grows.”

Earlier in the negotiations between lawmakers and the governor over Kempthorne’s proposed $34 million state parks initiative, some lawmakers and state officials thought gravel from Eagle Island could be tapped to fund park improvements elsewhere in the state. However, it turned out that federal regulations tied to the original establishment of the park require any money raised there to be spent on that park.

Sen. Elliott Werk, D-Boise, said that was what persuaded him to support the deal.

“That was a big deal,” Werk said. “We’re not going to go and trash one of our state parks to fund some others.”

Instead, he said, a new master plan will be developed for the park at Eagle Island, which now includes a large water slide, picnic areas, a popular swimming beach and equestrian trails. Much of the 545-acre park is undeveloped.

“If as a result of that master plan, we generate some excess gravel because we needed a lake here or a path there, that will generate some revenue,” Werk said. “That’s a far cry from ‘we’re gonna go turn Eagle Island into a gravel pit.’ … That’s not what’s happening.”

Extensive environmental assessments and federal permits would be required before any gravel could be mined from the park. The park is located in an area of farmland mixed with development, where there are many other gravel-mining operations.

Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, co-chairman of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said, “We’re not going to call it mining. That’s not how we view it. We’re going to be moving dirt and gravel anyhow.”

But he said he’d seen studies suggesting 1.5 million cubic yards of “potential resources that could be extracted” are located just in one undeveloped section of the park.

“At $6 a yard, that’s nearly $10 million,” he said. “The end goal is that we have a beautiful, first-class park that can be used for generations to come.”

Kempthorne has made the parks initiative, which includes parks across the state, a central part of his legislative agenda in his final year in office.

“I’m pleased that JFAC’s action will allow us to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in many special places around this great state,” he said after the joint budget committee’s 15-5 vote to approve the plan. “When I asked lawmakers to consider my Experience Idaho state parks package this January, my main focus was to ensure that our state’s natural wonder remains for future generations to enjoy.”

He called the program “an appropriate investment for a state that’s so well-known for its natural beauty, and one worthy of the foresight of previous generations who created these great places where childhood memories and family traditions blossom.”

The funding deal falls short of the governor’s $34 million proposal, but he said with additional items funded in next year’s parks budget, it’s enough to fund his initiative.

The park deal includes at least $5.6 million to revamp Heyburn, Harriman and Castle Rocks state parks – including renovating deteriorated buildings at Heyburn to allow them to be used again – and up to $1.5 million for improvements at Ponderosa State Park that are “consistent with a natural park.” The governor had earlier proposed funding a new lodge there, but withdrew the request in favor of spending more money on park maintenance and seeking private funding for a lodge.

The deal also includes $2.4 million for repairs and maintenance at state parks – in addition to $2.9 million already targeted toward that in next year’s budget. The measure also includes an emergency clause, allowing work to start right away.

Boise State University political scientist Jim Weatherby said the gravel-mining piece could “cast a cloud over his parks initiative by giving some ammunition to some of the … groups who have already made quite extreme statements about what they perceive to be his anti-environmental record.”

Weatherby said such criticism would be “very much unfair – but what is fair, particularly in national politics?”

Kempthorne is awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate after he was nominated for the post by President Bush.