County Rejects Plan To Protect Water Bonner Commissioners Concerned About Intruding On Property Rights

A plan to protect the drinking water for Oldtown, Idaho, and Newport, Wash., isn’t dead despite rejection from the Bonner County Commission, proponents say.

The commission voted 2-1 Thursday to reject a plan that would have established a bell-shaped protection zone for prolific drinking water springs east of Oldtown. The springs are part of the supply for a joint water system supplying Oldtown and Newport, called the West Bonner Water District.

There’s a significant potential for spoiling the water because the soil is porous, the water is near the surface and Bonner County’s population is increasing. The Water District wanted to establish guidelines for about a 1-square-mile area, out of the estimated 22-square-mile aquifer recharge area, said Bryan Quayle, a land use consultant for the West Bonner Water District.

The plan included an ordinance saying certain uses - landfills, sewage disposal, cemeteries and wrecking yards - wouldn’t be allowed where they could pollute the drinking water.

Commissioners Bud Mueller and Larry Allen weren’t as concerned with the wellhead protection plan as they were with the accompanying ordinance that restricted development that might threaten the water, said Quayle.

Given that, the Water District may fine-tune the ordinance and send the plan back to the commission.

Allen agrees that the ordinance had “ambiguous language and some things would have to be assumed,” he said.

“I’m not against the idea of protection,” Allen said. He worried that the ordinance would have “been intrusive into private property rights.”

Quayle disagrees. Only 65 parcels of land are in the proposed protection zone and in many cases only part of a parcel is affected.

“It doesn’t eliminate every use; it meant the use would occur with consideration for the well,” Quayle said.

Existing uses of the land would be guaranteed by a grandfather right. Uses that might threaten the groundwater, such as storing chemicals or fuel, aren’t prohibited. They merely have to be done so as to prevent the chemicals from leaking into the ground, Quayle said.

Logging, farming and installing septic tanks for single-family homes would be allowed, he said.

The few uses prohibited - landfills and cemeteries, for example - are unlikely because the area primarily is 5-acre parcels of private property, Quayle said.

Newport City Administrator Jack Henderson said the commission’s rejection of the plan is unfortunate. The water district’s consultant contacted every private landowner with a well during preparation of the plan and it was warmly received.

Private property rights are a big concern, but the plan would have protected private wells in addition to the public water supply, he said. And it’s important to consider “how whatever you do to your land affects the next guy,” Henderson said.

“How do we protect the aquifer that provides water for 4,000 people?”

, DataTimes MEMO: WHAT’S NEXT The Water District may fine-tune the ordinance and send the plan back to the commission.