Task Force Aims To Preserve The North Fork Commissioners Appoint 11-Member Panel To Study Coeur D’Alene River

Protecting the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River from pollution and population growth is the aim of a new task force created by Shoshone County commissioners.

Ken Lustig of the Panhandle Health District heads the group, which will meet for the first time Dec. 1 in Wallace.

“My goal is to have written recommendations to commissioners by mid-March,” Lustig said Tuesday.

“They can select which ones they’d like to pursue. Then I would like to work with the commissioners to come up with an implementation strategy.”

The 11 members of the task force have received copies of a 1983 North Fork draft management plan, which was written by a similar group but never was implemented.

The 1983 plan dealt with erosion control, land use planning and other topics that, Lustig said, are more pressing than ever.

Task force members Joan Dorsett and Claudia Howe of the North Fork Campers Association represent recreational property owners. “It’s a beautiful river, and I feel that everyone’s goal is to protect it,” Dorsett said.

Claudia Childress of Murray and Joe Peak of Enaville represent North Fork area business owners. They are worried primarily about potential septic pollution from recreational vehicles that are parked in the flood plain.

Representing Shoshone County are building official Robert Bird, planning administrator Nila Jurkovich, Sheriff Dan Schierman and Chris Pfahl, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Other members are Geoff Harvey of the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality and Bob Hayes of the Idaho Department of Water Resources.