This Bureaucrat Served Excellently

Spokane County residents are indebted to Larry Belmont, a man most of them don’t know.

Few have done more to protect the region’s drinking water than Belmont, who just retired after 27 years as the Panhandle Health District’s first director. Throughout his career in North Idaho, the mild-mannered bureaucrat fought special interests to protect the Spokane-Rathdrum Aquifer.

In the 1970s, he and the health board braved potential lawsuits while battling successfully to ban most septic tanks from the Rathdrum Prairie. Much later, the district persuaded Coeur d’Alene officials to hook a significant number of homes to the city sewer system. Last year, Belmont waged an information campaign to beat back an effort by business lobbyists to undercut the district’s environmental oversight.

Belmont’s dedication to environmental protection, the poor and public health earned him powerful enemies. But it also transformed the Panhandle Health District into a model agency in a state recognized for its public-health care. In fact, David Reese, Belmont’s successor, described himself as “ecstatic” to have the opportunity to work in an Idaho health district.

Reese will have the proverbial big shoes to fill.

You have to go back to 1971 to understand all that Belmont has done for the region. He was hired to run the five-county district when the Legislature created the seven health districts across the state. Prior to that, the state ran a three-county health department from Kootenai County.

Within three years, the health district worked with the counties to close all 55 open-burning dumps in North Idaho and open eight landfills. Imagine what an environmental mess open burning would cause today.

Under Belmont, the district built health clinics in every county. “When we opened those clinics,” said former board chairman Jim Burns, “they exploded with people.” Burns credited Belmont with encouraging the start of innovative programs, such as Senior Companions, which brought help and companionship to isolated and indigent seniors.

Aquifer protection probably is the district’s top contribution to the region’s environmental health. However, the state Board of Health was reluctant at first to endorse the Panhandle Health District’s plan to regulate development over the aquifer.

That’s when Belmont basically told his health board: “Look, you know that you’re right. You have the documentation to prove it. You need to stand up and say we know this is appropriate.” Ultimately, the district board sued the state, and the state approved the regulations.

And we’re all better off for it.

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