Milo Creek Job Needs $3.2 Million Engineering Finished And Bidding Begun

The engineering is done, and the bidding has begun for construction of a new underground route for Milo Creek in Kellogg.

The only thing missing is about $3.2 million.

“Our hope is that we can go ahead with the project,” Shoshone County Commissioner Sherry Krulitz said. “We’ll do what we can do at this point.”

The total cost of the project to rebuild the piping system for Milo Creek is about $12 million. State and federal funds dedicated so far to the project add up to about $8.8 million.

Local, state and federal coordinators of the project were also counting on $4 million from the federal Housing and Urban Development agency. But instead, the state received a total of $370,000 from the agency for disaster work.

Because it’s not enough for Milo Creek, the state plans on using those funds elsewhere and relying on the state’s congressional delegation to come up with the missing money.

“We need $4 million, that’s what we’re hurting for now,” said Darren Blagburn of the state Bureau of Disaster Services. “We were never guaranteed that money from HUD.”

Guarantee or no guarantee, Idaho’s Sen. Larry Craig is demanding to know where the money is. Craig sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee and has asked for an accounting of $500 million that Congress appropriated to HUD last year for disaster cleanup and mitigation nationwide.

“The senator is very concerned about where is the money and why isn’t the money out on the ground helping people,” Craig spokesman Mike Tracy said. “I don’t think Sen. Craig or other members of the appropriations committee will let up on the agency until they can account for this money.”

If they can’t get the money from HUD, Krulitz said they might attempt to get the Army Corps of Engineers involved. The corps declined to participate in the funding of the flood-mitigation project because it didn’t follow their standard procedures.

“A corps job is done completely different,” Krulitz said.

“It’s many years of studying before you turn a shovel of dirt. We have a project where we need to do something immediately.”

When Milo Creek blew out of its ancient tunnel last spring, it flooded the streets of Kellogg, washed through yards and created dangerous sinkholes along its path.

State and federal officials declared a disaster and set in motion a multiagency effort to solve the problem. Milo Creek ran above ground, through the streets, all summer and was temporarily diverted below ground before winter.

Now, county and state officials are trying to begin work on the permanent solution, which involves piping the creek underneath Division Street to an outfall on the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.

Bids are out now for 54-inch high-density plastic pipes. Next month, the county anticipates collecting bids for the first phase of the construction, which is scheduled to begin June 1.

The project will be done in two phases. The upper portion of the creek will be improved first while the state pursues funding to complete the second phase.

Last fall, voters approved a referendum calling for the formation of a special taxing district to pay for the ongoing maintenance of the Milo Creek system.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Who pays The agencies that have committed to paying for the construction costs are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Silver Valley Natural Resource Trustees, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Economic Development Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Idaho Bureau of Disaster Services, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bunker Hill Consent Decree.