Opening The Gates Clearing Blocked Drainage Culvert Eases Threat Of Flooding On Hayden Lake

Dean Breczinski knelt Wednesday morning in the claw of an excavator, suspended above the frigid, gray-green water of Hayden Lake.

He pocketed his shiny watch, pushed up his sleeves, grasped a hook and reached into water that rushed toward culverts below Dike Road. His mission: attach a chain to the first of two steel panels that had been welded to the bottom of the spillway.

When Breczinski yanked out the panels Wednesday, he removed the potential for a swollen Hayden Lake to overtake lakeside homes. There is now no chance the dike will wash out, and with it a pipe carrying raw sewage.

“With our sewer line in there, we don’t have any choice,” said Gerry House, chairman of the Hayden Lake Recreational and Sewer District.

House chuckled as Breczinski got the hook in place and secured it to the chain.

“It all comes down to baling wire in the end,” he said.

The 11-foot-12-inch-wide panels were installed two years ago to replace frequently vandalized wooden floodgates. They were welded in place to keep swimmers from making a dangerous trip into the culverts.

What the lake north of Coeur d’Alene needs is a simple, wheel-operated spillway gate, House said. The money to buy one was once all lined up by Otis Wuest, the watermaster who watched over the lake level for years. Wuest longed to develop a public recreation area along the dike.

Then the land ownership got tied up in a lawsuit, complicated by longstanding debate over the proper level for the lake.

The meadow that handles overflow from the lake is claimed by Idaho Forest Industries. The company’s president, Tom Richards, lives next to the meadow and doesn’t want it developed.

The Idaho Department of Lands sued IFI in 1988, claiming it owns the property.

First District Judge Gary Haman ruled in the company’s favor. He was overruled by the Supreme Court, which sent the case back to him.

It’s been on Haman’s desk for five years. On Wednesday, he said he could not comment on the case.

Without a decision, House said, it will be difficult to get all the parties to agree on, and find the money for, an adequate flood-control gate.

The operation of the dike is legally in the hands of a defunct irrigation district. The sewer district is involved because of its sewer line that lies 9 feet or so under the dike road.

If the line breaks, it will send sewage into an area where topsoil has been scraped away to speed up runoff.

Polluted floodwaters would head straight for the aquifer. That’s the region’s main source of drinking water.

The situation is serious enough that the state declared an emergency. County disaster personnel stood by in case anything went wrong Wednesday, although the flow of sewage had been stopped at the pump station during the work.

House hopes that the concern caused by the high runoff will prompt a permanent resolution to the spillway problem.

Robert Wuest wants that, too. For years, he accompanied his father as Otis Wuest raised and lowered the wooden floodgate.

The elder Wuest died two years ago.

Said his son: “He’s looking down from heaven saying, ‘C’mon.”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo