Rocks And A High Place Tiny Town, Worried About Flooding, Forced To Seek Solution After New Highway Creates Reverse Dike

Two generations ago, miners with gold lust washed out a creek and gave this tiny town life.

Today, weary retirees and cash-poor merchants fear Uncle Sam is ready to wash what’s left away.

Residents here say a nearby $8.6 million highway project all but ensures Murray will flood during heavy rains.

But when they brought their concerns to the agency responsible, they were offered a solution: Move.

“Why should we leave? We didn’t design the damn road,” said Lloyd Roath, who operates the Sprag Pole Bar.

The offhand suggestion has led to an ornery little battle. It pits a quiet mountain town against the Federal Highway Administration.

The problem first came to a head this spring when Murray - along with much of the Idaho Panhandle - suffered flooding.

Residents say, unlike in other river towns, that’s unusual in this community of 63 people way up in the hills north of Interstate 90 in Shoshone County. They were quick to blame the nearby reconstruction of Highway 9, a 10-mile project linking Murray to Thompson Falls, Mont.

All Murray’s homes and old wooden buildings sit at the lowest point of a V-shaped canyon, next to long piles of loosely stacked rock - dredged remnants from a gold rush 70 years ago.

In heavy rains or during spring runoff, water and snowmelt used to drain from the northern hills, run into town, then pass through the rocks into Prichard Creek to the south.

Not anymore.

Last year, contractors compacted the rock and built the new highway on top of the piles. No longer porous, the mashed down rock forms a sort of reverse dike: Run-off now collects in town and backs up into homes and businesses, and the three small new culverts under the road don’t help.

“We had 1-1/2 inches of rain in June and the culverts were three-quarters full,” Roath argued. “And that was in summer.”

Last spring, some residents had a foot of water in their homes - a first for lifelong resident Leila Grebil, 56.

“We have a cabin people stay in … last spring it was full of mud,” she said. “The flood even turned over the refrigerator.”

Residents were stranded for days by several feet of standing water.

When rising complaints brought out a highway engineer in June, he quickly pointed out Murray was in a floodplain. And he said there was nothing the road crew could do.

“Rather than adding ineffectual culverts or performing channel control methods, the town of Murray should possibly relocate buildings outside the northern flood plain,” wrote engineer Mark Browning in a memo.

Murray residents didn’t take the suggestion lightly.

“It’s offensive,” said resident Chuck Reynalds. “But it’s about what some folks expected.”

After more complaints, a highway project manager then told residents his office would consider alternatives. The town need merely hire an engineer to draw up some plans.

“They’re expecting this unincorporated little town to handle it? That’s insane,” Reynalds said. “If they can find 150 FBI agents every time they want to raid one of them poker machines, they should be able to find us an engineer.”

Since Shoshone County had rubber-stamped the highway design, seven Murray families - a quarter of the town - got together and sued the county. Commissioners are now negotiating with the highway administration for a solution.

But if nothing happens before flood season comes around, residents are ready with heavy equipment.

“If it means taking out that road, we’ll do it,” Roath said. “We’re not risking our homes anymore.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Graphic: Feds want part of town moved