Highway 2 Gives Loggers Blues
The JD Lumber Co. struggles to get logs to and from its Priest River mill. Business at Kathy and Don Rabe’s Laclede store and gas station has slowed to a trickle.
The problem is a $7.3 million highway construction project on U.S. Highway 2 between Priest River and Sandpoint. The job has snarled commercial traffic and other travelers for months.
The Rabes and JD Lumber have filed claims against the Idaho Transportation Department. They say highway officials are negligent for stopping the flow of commerce and not providing an alternate route around the construction.
“It’s hard to believe the state didn’t take these businesses into consideration when they started this project,” said Dave Slaughter, sales manager for JD Lumber.
“We aren’t getting any business because no one can get to us. They are working on both sides of us, and we are isolated,” said Kathy Rabe. “We won’t survive another year like this.”
The mill wants more than $60,000 in damages. And if the construction forces it to shut down, Slaughter said, it will cost another $17,000 a day.
The two-hour-plus delays have forced the company to pay more for its logs and pay truck drivers more for the time they are stuck in traffic.
“Loggers don’t want to come this way and wait, and if they do, they charge us more to do it,” Slaughter said.
The Laclede store didn’t set a price on its losses, but Rabe said business is down nearly 50 percent from last year. The nearby Klondyke Cafe has almost totally shut down, not opening until 4 p.m. when traffic is allowed through.
“Our steady clients don’t even come in anymore for gas or groceries,” said Rabe. “And we probably won’t see them until the project is finished.” That’s at least a year away.
Tom Baker, the transportation department’s district engineer, said delays on the seven-mile construction site are a problem but unavoidable.
“It’s an unfortunate fact that almost any time we do construction work it’s a hardship for some businesses,” he said.
Baker hopes to have the contractor work night shifts to speed up the project. A bypass route on railroad right-of-way is also slated to be built next week to keep traffic moving.
Traffic now only flows several hours in the morning and is stopped from noon until 4:30 p.m.
JD Lumber and a handful of other area sawmills said they were promised an alternate route in January.
“The bypass route still hasn’t even begun to be constructed. That’s why we finally went to an attorney, hoping to get something done,” Slaughter said.
Baker said the delay on the bypass was due to negotiations with the railroad, private landowners and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over some wetlands.
“I know all the mills are having to adjust their schedules considerably, but it takes time to work through all the agencies,” Baker said.
Most of the area mill owners and businesses were angry when the project began last year, because the state had few provisions in place for traffic control.
Highway officials initially said delays would only be 15 minutes. That never happened. Delays were as long as three hours. Complaints finally forced the transportation department to install electronic reader boards and give traffic information over the radio to warn motorists.
“We are very upset, and if something isn’t done soon we aren’t going to be able to hang on,” Rabe said. “All we can say is the state has made one mistake after another.”