Health District To Testify Against Refueling Depot Kootenai Planner Asks Agencies To Address Aquifer Concerns

The Panhandle Health District’s director and its environmental experts will testify next month against a proposed refueling depot near Rathdrum.

The health board voted unanimously Wednesday to allow staff members to speak at the hearing after receiving a letter last week from Kootenai County senior planner Rand Wichman requesting them to do so.

The move comes after the health district’s controversial decision last year not to testify in the first round of public hearings on the proposed Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway refueling depot.

The railroad seeks two conditional-use permits to build a 500,000-gallon diesel refueling facility at its Hauser yard, located atop the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. A hearing examiner ruled against the depot earlier this month, but the final decision rests with the Kootenai County commissioners.

About 20 members of Friends of the Aquifer, a grass-roots group opposing the depot, packed the health district board room Wednesday, but were not called on to comment.

“I’m surprised it didn’t happen long before this,” group member John Dixon said. “These people are in charge of public health. This is a public health issue.”

Panhandle Health District Director Kay Kindig will testify next month to the motion approved in a 4-3 vote by the health board in August.

That motion states that the refueling depot’s engineering is sound, but its location would pose too great a threat to the aquifer.

Ken Lustig, the district’s environmental health director, will answer technical questions regarding the depot.

Health district board Chairman Marlow Thompson planned to testify to that motion in front of the hearing examiner in November, but board members decided at the last minute not to testify. The decision came after many of them were contacted by the railroad’s public relations firm.

In her report, hearing examiner Jean DeBarbieris expressed disappointment that the Panhandle Health District did not testify.

“The Hearing Examiner has understood that the PHD was charged with protection of the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, and its authority encompassed both quality of drinking water and disposal of wastes,” DeBarbieris wrote.

Kevin Barker, community projects manager for BNSF, said the health district board is “simply responding to the request made by the planners.”

“We’re confident science is going to show this does not pose any risk to the environment, to the aquifer or to public health,” Barker said Wednesday.

In addition to the health district, Wichman sent similar letters to Spokane County and to the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality.

Stan Miller, head of Spokane County’s aquifer protection program, said he has not yet received the letter and does not know if he will testify.

DEQ officials have said they will testify in February like they did in the November hearings, providing technical information but not stating an opinion.

If groups choose not to testify, the county has the power to subpoena them. But Wichman said he did not expect that to be necessary.

Commissioner Dick Compton said he values the testimony the three agencies would provide.

“Their testimony is important,” Compton said. “By them being on the record, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of where they stand.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: FUEL DEPOT Hearing

A hearing on Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway’s proposed refueling depot will be conducted at 6 p.m. Feb. 14 at Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene, with possible additional hearings the next two days.