Bush declares disaster area after May floods
BOISE – President Bush on Wednesday declared a disaster area on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in north-central Idaho, where spring floods caused an estimated $5 million in damage.
The declaration covers damage to public property caused by heavy rains and flooding from May 6 to May 20 in Nez Perce County. It authorizes federal money to cover 75 percent of the costs of repair work by the tribe and by state and local government.
No one was injured in the floods, but several county roads on the reservation were destroyed, and there was damage to wildlife habitat, a fish hatchery, tribal roads, agricultural fields, private residences and a community sweat lodge.
“The sweat lodge was used for cleansing the body, mind and spirit and for religious purposes,” said Darren Williams, policy analyst for the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee. “It had manure and other debris washed into it, making it unusable.”
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne asked the Bush administration June 3 for $1.6 million to help pay for flood cleanup in northcentral Idaho, saying the damage was of “such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state.”
Wednesday’s declaration did not specify how much federal assistance would be made available.
But in addition to pitching in on repairs, the government will make more money available on a cost-sharing basis for improvements that reduce the risk of future flood damage, said Michael Brown, under-secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response, in a statement.
A brief but intense storm May 6 created a flash flood in Hubbard Gulch east of Lapwai that sent tons of debris down the drainage. The material clogged the clean-water-intake system at a tribal fish hatchery on the Clearwater River, forcing biologists to prematurely release 400,000 juvenile spring-run chinook and 900,000 juvenile fall-run chinook.
Two days later and eight miles away in Garden Gulch, another rainstorm sent a wall of water 3 to 4 feet high roaring through pastures and farm fields a mile east of Lewiston, clogging culverts with debris and washing out large sections of county roads.
“In all my years growing up out there, I have seen nothing of this magnitude that hit in two separate areas of the county within three days and did so much damage,” Nez Perce County Commission Chairman Ron Wittman said Wednesday.
Wittman said the county plans to schedule a meeting with the tribe, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security to begin determining which repair projects will be eligible for federal money.
The county will also ask the agency if there is any assistance available for private landowners whose homes or farm buildings were damaged, he said.