Project again affects lake

Crews demolishing old boat houses in Bayview, Idaho, recently broke an underwater sewer line, but the developer’s engineer claims little if any sewage leaked into Lake Pend Oreille.

Developer Bob Holland neglected to report the break to state and federal officials who are now investigating to determine the amount of sewage that entered the lake, whether the pipe was fixed properly and if there are adequate policies in place to deal with any future sewer or water line problems.

This is just one of many ongoing problems plaguing Holland, the developer who last month destroyed one of the last healthy spawning beds for the lake’s struggling kokanee salmon population.

“The waste that entered the lake was probably less than what someone with a holding tank on their boat discharges into the lake,” said Dennis Scott of Meckel Engineering. “Unfortunately it wasn’t reported, and that appears to be what the big deal is about. Within hours it was fixed.”

A 2-inch sewer line connected to two float homes in the bay was likely snagged in late April as equipment dragged debris across the lake bottom, Scott said. The line broke and floated to the surface. Workers immediately fixed the break.

John Tindall of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality’s Coeur d’Alene office said he knew nothing about the sewer line break until Tuesday when a Bayview resident complained.

He hopes to get a report and full explanation of what happened from Holland’s representatives by next week.

“They didn’t give me a good explanation on why they think their conclusion is correct,” Tindall said about the company’s claims that little, if any, sewage leaked into the lake.

Tindall said his investigation hasn’t gotten far enough to determine if Holland may face penalties or fines for not reporting the sewer line break. That may depend on how much sewage escaped into the lake.

Neither float home was occupied or had power. Scott said the line is connected to a manifold that hooks into the city system. The manifold has a check valve so sewage can’t flow back from the city’s sewage lines into the float home lines.

In that situation, the most sewage that could have escaped was whatever was in the 2-inch line between 50 feet and 100 feet long, he said.

Bayview Water and Sewer District officials didn’t return calls.

The sewer issue was raised Wednesday at the Pend Oreille Basin Commission meeting where Holland’s destruction of the prime kokanee spawning bed was on the agenda.

Bayview resident Skip Wilcox, the person who reported the sewer line break to DEQ, said Scott gave a similar explanation to the Lake Commission.

“I’m tired of his ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Wilcox said. “Ignorance doesn’t work anymore.”

Many residents such as Wilcox have been monitoring the projects that Holland’s company, Waterford Park Homes, is undertaking as it buys and develops much of the commercial property in the small, waterfront town.

Locals were outraged when they learned of the spawning bed destruction.

The Idaho Department of Lands issued a stop-work order last month after Holland had steel beams pounded directly through the shallow spawning beds as part of his large-scale marina expansion for the Bayview waterfront. A barge carrying the pile driver also bulldozed large swaths of the gravel beds used by the fish to reproduce, and a tugboat pushing the barge is believed to have damaged other spawning areas and living kokanee fry with its propeller wash.

Holland had applied for, but not yet received, the state permit to do the work.

The no-work order will remain until the Idaho Fish and Game Department can assess the damage and recommend remediation.

Holland’s attorney, Steve Wetzel, said the Waterford Park Homes employee responsible for giving the order to start the piling work was fired. Wetzel said the company is investigating contractor Charlie Kramer’s involvement. He’s the same contractor whose crew broke the sewer line, Wetzel said.

From what Wetzel understands, he said the spawning bed is “devastated,” not so much from the pile driving but from silt stirred up by the propellers on the contractor’s boats.

The site of the construction, Scenic Bay, has only a small fraction of the huge North Idaho lake’s shoreline, but it’s where 98 percent of the remaining wild kokanee spawning took place in the lake last fall, according to surveys from Fish and Game. Some spawning also takes place in creeks.

Last year the state ordered Holland to stop work on a retaining wall because he did not have a permit.