Oden Bay Lagoon Plan Voted Down

Residents of the Oden Bay area declared victory Thursday over an out-of-town developer who intended to build a subdivision and sewage lagoon in their midst.

Bonner County Commissioners Brian Orr and Dale Van Stone voted against the sewage lagoon proposal, saying it didn’t meet the community design requirements of the comprehensive plan and posed a danger to neighboring residents.

The lagoon, which would have served up to 30 homes, was opposed by the well-organized Oden Citizens for Appropriate Land Use.

“We’re ecstatic,” said Dan McDonald, president of the neighborhood organization. “We put up a good case … We now know more than we ever wanted to know about sewage lagoons.”

Jeff Pfaeffle, the developer from Ketchum, Idaho, said he would continue to find a way to develop his property.

“I was totally unprepared for this type of decision,” Pfaeffle said.

In making his last-ditch appeal, Pfaeffle told commissioners he didn’t think it was fair to deny him a permit, when they had no reason to believe the lagoon would fail.

“Some areas of the county are not suitable for development,” Van Stone said.

Pfaeffle’s development depended on the approval of the lagoon because soil in the area would not support traditional septic tanks and drain fields.

He intended the lagoon to serve his subdivision, as well as other property owners in the area who could not get septic permits. Those other property owners include Commissioner Bud Mueller, who did not vote on the matter, and former Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam.

“I’m not involved with the Aryan Nations or the KKK,” Pfaeffle said after the hearing.

In other business, commissioners unanimously approved a request for a zoning change from agricultural to industrial at the site of the former Crown Pacific sawmill in Colburn. The new owner is turning the property into an industrial park.