Corps Allows State To Finish Project Permit Was Pulled Because Of Damage To Wetlands Near Sandpoint

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reinstated a wetlands permit that clears the way for the Idaho Transportation Department to finish a U.S. Highway 95 construction project.

The Corps, which pulled the permit in October 1994 because of the project’s damage to wetlands, said the Transportation Department’s restoration proposal met its standards.

It also noted that further delays in the highway work would constitute a public nuisance.

“We didn’t want at all to be responsible for delaying the project for the public,” said Brad Daly, chief of the Corps’ regulatory branch in Walla Walla.

The decision does not affect a federal lawsuit filed in July seeking monetary damages and restoration of the wetlands to conditions that existed before the highway work began.

The complaint, filed by the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille Coalition and five Bonner County residents, seeks removal of road fill from the wetlands and payment of $10,000 per day for alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

The reinstated Corps of Engineers permit requires the Transportation Department to closely monitor the project to control erosion. It also must track the bog areas for the next five years to make sure 85 percent of the wetlands retain their native vegetation and water content stays at pre-project conditions.

Problems began last year when 30,000 cubic feet of road fill sank into a bog within the project area, causing the wetland to shift and heave and resulting in tons of fill ending up in Sand Creek.

Transportation Department officials later admitted they knew little about the area’s topography before construction began.