Proposed Trail Spawns Dueling Petitions

Silver Valley residents who support the proposed Plummer-to-Mullan recreational trail are circulating a petition to send to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.

Mike Domy, a Kellogg bicycle shop owner, hopes to match the 500-plus signatures that were collected on a petition circulated by Citizens Against Rails to Trails. That group is comprised largely of people who own land along the 72-mile stretch of unused Union Pacific Railroad line that would be converted to a trail.

Loss of privacy and potential vandalism are among their big concerns. In contrast, businesses see the trail as a way of bringing in tourist dollars; hikers and bicyclists see it as long, waterfront park.

The pro-trail effort is low-key, Domy said Friday. He faxed the petition to Silver Valley businesses last week, and hopes to send signatures to the governor in another week.

“We aren’t going door to door and we aren’t telling any horror stories,” he said. “The petition just says, `Do you support it?’ and `sign here if you do.’ “The other petition says `sign if you have any concerns.’ Well, everyone has concerns.”

The wording of the anti-trail petition was actually “are you opposed or do you have unanswered concerns,” group member Mike Schlepp said. The railroad right-of-way crosses his farm along the Coeur d’Alene River.

The trail is being promoted as a way to clean up and cover up toxic metals. The railbed was heavily contaminated by lead, which washed from trains that served the mining industry. The $20 million trail would be paid for by Union Pacific and managed by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

The state, tribe and Environmental Protection Agency have promised to release a document in April that will respond to landowners’ worries about the trail.