Big Flood-Control Project Almost Finished Three Years And $15 Million Went Into Huge Milo Creek Job

One of the biggest public works projects in the history of the Silver Valley wraps up this month.

For Carol Stoddard, branch manager at the U.S. Bank in Kellogg, that means banking gets back to normal after construction forced drive-through customers to pull U-turns all summer.

For Wardner Mayor Jo Ann Groves, it means people in the tiny community just south of Kellogg can drive straight home instead of following intricate detours to dug-up driveways.

Both are celebrating the finish of the Milo Creek flood control project.

“After seeing the floods come running down by the bank a couple years ago, it’s great to have it complete,” said Stoddard.

Three years and more than $15 million later, work on the complicated system of basins, canals and pipes is expected to wrap up by the end of this week.

Along with flood control, the system brings new paving, curbs, sewer, water and storm drains from Wardner at the top of Milo gulch to its outflow in Kellogg at the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.

A ceremony to mark the end of work is planned for mid-October.

“We’ll clip a ribbon, blow the suds off a beer, something like that,” said project coordinator Glenn Jackson, a consultant for the Idaho Bureau of Disaster Services.

The new system replaces a labyrinth of old underground channels that blew out in 1997 when spring floodwaters backed up the system.

Tons of mine tailings perched above the Bunker Hill Superfund site swept through Wardner and Kellogg. Flooding contaminated 50 yards and five miles of waterfront. Health officials linked high blood lead levels in 17 local kids to the toxic flood waters.

Today, Milo Creek is flowing through what engineers refer to as seven different structures. Gates on two sediment ponds at the head of the gulch are designed to catch rocks and other debris, like the logs that blew out underground pipes in 1997.

Only about 20 percent of the new system is above ground. From the top, the project goes straight down the middle of Wardner and Kellogg, following Main and Division streets.

Two 5-foot-wide pipes mark the outflow into the river.

Residents watching work unfold expressed a mix of fascination and frustration.

Wardner, where the first phase of construction started, was the toughest stage of the project to build because the community is squeezed by the steep gulch.

People living in town had to press a contractor to make sure the grade of their driveways didn’t get too steep as the main road got wider.

Groves said she had a run-in with one engineer.

“He told me I was a housewife, go in the house,” she said last week. “But it was during that time Wardner was being very adamant … it was a hot summer day, he was frustrated.”

Three contractors did the work: K-C Construction; Go-Pro Construction; and Nekich Construction.

K-C sought more than $1.1 million in construction cost over-runs but received only $88,000 from a state-sanctioned settlement.

Nekich still has some loose ends to finish up, such as paving driveways in Wardner and paving in Kellogg.

The project got a total of $15,690,000 in funding from public and private sources, according to Jackson.

But that won’t be quite enough for “gilding” touches like striping the streets, he said.

“We felt it was more important to take care of the basic things, like more pavement and handicapped ramps.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: FUNDING Funding sources

The Milo Creek Permanent Improvement Project tapped many coffers:

Idaho state general fund: $2.475 million

Idaho highways fund: $367,000

Federal Emergency Management Agency: $2.9 million

Department of Housing and Urban Development: nearly $5 million

Economic Development Administration: $1.2 million

Natural Resources Conservation Service: nearly $900,000

Silver Valley Natural Resources trustees: $150,000

Mining companies involved in the Bunker Hill consent decree: $575,000.