Crews Reduce Flood Threat North Of Boise

Crews working nonstop for the last six weeks have cut the danger of serious flooding from the fire in the foothills just north of Boise. And while the discovery of a live World War II-era grenade last week stopped restoration work on the Eighth Street Fire, about 90 percent of the job has been done.

“The odds of our having a really serious flood now are small,” said Milt Williams of the Idaho Department of Lands. “I feel much more relieved than I did a month ago.”

Other officials emphasized, however, that while flood danger has been reduced, it has not been eliminated. And they said the delay could create problems in meeting the time-table for finishing the project.

The target date was Oct. 31 for completing trenching, tilling, dam building and other restoration work needed to reduce the flood danger in the Hulls Gulch and Crane Creek drainage areas.

Some officials found a silver lining in the Aug. 26 fire that burned more than 15,000 acres of sagebrush, grass and trees. A worker found the rifle grenade just lying on the ground where crews had been digging trenches with heavy machinery.

“Had this fire not occurred and burned off 30 to 40 years of growth, we might never have found this,” said Greg Burch, of the Bureau of Land Management’s operations chief for the rehabilitation effort.

Foothills rehabilitation work will not resume until after a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers arrives today to assess the risk and the prospect of even more ordnance in the area.

The corps official will likely talk with Ken Swanson, administrator of the Idaho Historical Museum. Swanson said some military police and the Army’s Ninth Service Command, which served the Northwest, trained at Fort Boise during World War II.

“We may find it’s an aberration, that someone brought home a souvenir from the war and just threw it up there,” Swanson said.