County Feels Dump Site Being Unfairly Trashed Says Dumpster Site Near Hope Poses No Threat To Environment

A two-year feud over a planned Dumpster site has Bonner County commissioners fed up with all the trash talk.

The commissioners demanded a retraction or apology this week from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They said a Corps official, Mike Doherty, wrongly expressed a personal opinion about the Dumpster project in a letter written on Corps stationary.

“I think he (Doherty) overstepped his authority,” said commissioner Dale Van Stone. “We are bending over backward to address environmental concerns. We just want to be treated fairly.”

Doherty and his supervisors say his comments were entirely proper and professional. Neither a retraction nor a written response will be made to commissioners. “I don’t know where the commissioners are coming from,” Doherty said. “We are not going to retract anything.”

The county wants to place a new Dumpster site in Hope, off state Highway 200 and near Sam Owen campground. The 1-acre site would be about 100 feet from a slough linked to Lake Pend Oreille. The project had been halted twice already to appease residents.

“We have gone through every precaution we can to protect the environment out there,” Van Stone said.

The site will replace Dumpsters located near Clark Fork that have constantly been vandalized, used for illegal dumping and the source of trash spilled into wetlands.

“I am in total agreement the old dumpsite needs to be changed, but this isn’t the appropriate place to put it,” said opponent Jane Fritz, a spokesman for the Panhandle Loon and Wetlands Project.

Two public hearings were held on the project, and the county even went through its own conditional-use permit process. Only one adjoining landowner objected to the Dumpster proposal. He since has sold his land to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, which signed off on the county’s proposal.

It wasn’t until the county asked for bids on the project that Fritz raised concerns. She argued the trash will pollute water and that the site by the slough contained Indian artifacts.

The county halted the project to have an archeological study done. No artifacts were found. Fritz now says the area has cultural significance for the Kalispell and Kootenai Indian tribes.

Van Stone doesn’t dispute that but said most of Lake Pend Oreille was used by the tribes.

What angered commissioners was when Fritz turned to the Corps to seek protection for nearby wetlands. Because the county is not going to fill or alter wetlands, it did not need Corps approval.

Doherty’s letter noted that if wetlands were not affected, he had no authority in the matter. He also wrote the Dumpsters would be close enough to wetlands to “undoubtedly have a negative impact on … wildlife.”

Van Stone said the county dump site will have a minimal impact compared to a 72-acre sewage lagoon surrounded by chain-link fence that was approved for the Hope area.

It’s ironic, he said, the Corps never made similar comments about the sewage site. “They never made an issue of how two sewage lagoons and all that chain-link fence will affect wildlife,” Van Stone said. “I think that is where Doherty crossed the line.”

, DataTimes