Group To Seek Site For Trash Bins Committee Forms After County Recommendation Is Rejected

Larry Keith is confident that a new committee can succeed where the county failed.

Keith, the mayor of Hope, Idaho, is helping to launch a new effort to find a location for a solid waste transfer site in east Bonner County.

“We will do it,” he said emphatically Thursday.

The committee will include the mayors of Hope, East Hope and Clark Fork, as well as a resident of the Hope Peninsula, a member of the area’s Chamber of Commerce, a member from a previous trash bin site committee and the county’s solid waste director.

The first meeting will be Tuesday in Clark Fork.

The new effort stemmed from the decision by the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission to turn down the county’s request for a conditional use permit to operate a trash bin site on county-owned property near Denton Slough.

The county spent years researching sites for a transfer station between Hope and Clark Fork, but never found an appropriate site that is generally accepted by the public, County Commissioner Dale Van Stone said.

The existing site is a collection of trash bins where Denton Road meets U.S. Highway 200. That site doesn’t have room to expand, but even if it did, county officials aren’t certain of the property’s ownership.

But the Denton Slough site has met with vocal opposition because of its location near a wetland and an elementary school. Opponents don’t trust the county’s site plan, which details a collection system for waste-water runoff and a retaining wall to keep the hillside from sloughing off.

The Kalispel Tribe considers the proposed site a cultural resource and has offered to purchase it from the county. The county has offered to sell most of the property to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, while retaining less than one acre for the staffed trash bin site.

After the planning commission’s decision, Van Stone said the county would not appeal.

But on Thursday he said an appeal is possible, just to keep the option open if the new committee’s efforts fail.

“Most people I know don’t want to lose out on a facility,” he said. “If you close the existing facility down and have no place to go, that’s going to be the biggest nightmare.”

The county may appeal the decision and put a condition on the permit that the new committee has at least a year to find an alternate site, he said.

But, if they don’t succeed, “at some point you have to say enough is enough,” he said.