Athol Opposes Development, Sewage Plant Officials Against Plan To Build 400 Homes

Athol officials are opposing a huge new development on the east side of town even though it might have provided them with a badly needed wastewater treatment plant.

They don’t like the idea of that sewage plant being located on the outskirts of town. And they’re troubled by the scope of the Silver Village proposal. City Clerk Charlotte Hooper says the proposed 400 houses would overwhelm the town of about 500 people.

“They’re proposing to put 1,200 people on less than 100 acres. We don’t have 1,200 people in the city, and we have a lot more acres,” she said.

Panhandle Resources Inc., the developer, is requesting a change in the Kootenai County comprehensive plan to allow the development. That will be the subject of a 6 p.m. hearing on June 22 before the Kootenai County planning commission.

The change in the comprehensive plan is a fall-back position for the company. Its first choice was annexation to Athol, apparently because the city’s involvement could have helped secure state and federal grants to pay for the wastewater plant.

But president F.H. “Rowdy” Davis withdrew the annexation request in March, citing a strong lack of interest on the city’s part.

“We just felt we were getting the small-town runaround,” he said last week.

City officials say that Davis and Gary Callihan, in charge of planning and engineering for the development, failed to provide the city with necessary details about the project.

Council member Joel Jensen said the developers were “getting a little pushy,” expecting the city to buy into the project without enough information.

“I’m still not against it,” Jensen said of Silver Village. “And I’m not saying I’m for it.”

Hooper said residents are troubled by the idea of more traffic, and the impact on the already-crowded Athol Elementary would be big. But the development would have some good aspects, she said.

“We need new businesses,” Hooper said. “We don’t need another convenience store. We need a grocery store and a bank.”

One piece of the Silver Village property is already zoned commercial, and work is proceeding there. Real estate agent Chad Dwyer, who is handling that, expects a grocery store, shops and a mini-storage will be included. He wouldn’t estimate when the businesses might open.

The businesses will be built at the intersection of U.S. Highway 95 and Idaho Highway 54. One hundred of Silver Village’s acres are north of Highway 54. All are east of the Athol city limits.

The wastewater plant would be on the other side of town. One of the city’s objections is the anticipated bad smell.

“The last site mentioned was just to the southwest of Athol and as our wind comes from that direction we feel it would be an unearned hardship on the residents,” Mayor Lanny Spurlock wrote Kootenai County planners.

Davis said Panhandle Resources is proceeding to build a private sewer system, referring questions about the details to Callihan. Callihan referred questions to Dwyer, who said he wasn’t qualified to talk about anything but the commercial development.

Now, Athol relies on septic systems with drain fields for sewage disposal. In order to protect the Rathdrum aquifer, the area’s source of drinking water, health officials limit the number of drain fields.

Athol collected impact fees of $1,000 per new house from 1994 to 1996 in order to save up for a $3 million wastewater plant. But legal questions arose about collecting the fee, and the city gave back the $70,000 it had brought in, said Hooper. City officials acknowledged that the fee wouldn’t bring in enough money anyway.

According to Davis, the Panhandle Health District and Idaho Division of Environmental Quality were “just delighted, 100 percent behind” the idea of a city wastewater plant built by the developer and used to serve existing city residents.

The health district hasn’t been approached for a permit or comment on a wastewater plant, according to senior environmental health specialist Jack Lawlor.

But health officials, he noted, are quite interested in getting existing septic-reliant homes hooked into a sewer system.

Athol is nearing the cap on the number of septic systems it’s allowed, Lawlor said. So, after another 60 or so houses are built, the city will stop growing. Unless it gets a wastewater plant.

Residents are split about evenly on the idea of Silver Village, according to Jensen. Some say growth is inevitable, and it might as well include a sewage treatment plant that can help the septic-dependent city. Others don’t want the rural character of the area to change.