Developers Trash Plan For Sewage Plant Neighbors Near Industrial Park Raise Stink Over Proposal, So Pair Moves To Plan B

A plan to build a sewage treatment operation at the Coeur d’Alene Industrial Park has been scrapped, largely because of neighbor opposition.

“Anything those people might smell, they’re going to blame on us,” said Gary Adams, one of the two businessmen who proposed the new facility. “It’s just more problems than it’s worth.”

Instead, Adams and his partner Dale Boudro plan to build their new operation at Round Mountain, the site the county has used for septic disposal for the past 20 years.

The site has become increasingly controversial in recent years as neighbors there complained about the smell and expressed concern about the drinking water. The 80-acre site sits just outside the Rathdrum aquifer, the region’s sole source of drinking water.

Adams received an extension from the county on his conditional use permit to address problems with the site by the end of the year.

In response, Adams and Boudro approached the city of Coeur d’Alene and the county with the dewatering facility proposal. The new technology would separate liquids from solids. The city had agreed to accept liquid effluent and the county landfill had agreed to take the solids.

Then the neighbors south of the industrial park got wind of the idea. During a meeting on the proposal, they said they worried that their property values would go down and that the neighborhood would stink.

Adams and Boudro explained that facilities like these have been built in residential areas and near schools with few complaints, but the residents were not convinced.

“I’m glad they’re not putting it here,” said George Lyman, who lives just south of the industrial park. “That’ll keep the smell away from us.”

The new plan calls for the operation to be set up at Round Mountain. Solids still will be shipped to the landfill at Fighting Creek, and the treated effluent will be used to irrigate timbered land on the site.

Adams said a lined, million-gallon lagoon will be built to store the effluent during the winter.

Adams and Boudro will need a new conditional use permit from the county and approval from the state division of environmental quality to operate it.

Because the site is near the aquifer, the amount of liquid being sprayed on the timbered land will have to be closely monitored to prevent it from seeping into the groundwater, said John Tindall of the DEQ. Tindall also anticipates that aerators will need to be installed to prevent odor problems.

“There’s a lot of things about it right now that aren’t even close to the amount of oversight they’ll have if they go to this other system,” Tindall said.