Boundary County seeks aid
June flooding that damaged an estimated 54 miles of levees in Boundary County will cost $49 million to $76 million to repair, according to a draft letter asking President Bush to declare the area a major disaster.
The letter, from the Idaho Department of Homeland Security with help from Boundary County Emergency Services officials, still contains rough estimates of the damage, said Bonners Ferry Mayor Darrell Kerby, who also works as a communications officer during county emergencies.
“The truth is,” Kerby said, “the accurate figure as to what the losses are is still not known, they’re still in estimated stages.”
According to the letter, levee repairs could cost $800,000 to $1.3 million per mile of the 54 miles damaged by the high water. More than 80 miles of levees sit on the banks of the Kootenai River in the North Idaho county.
Crop and property damage is more than $1.5 million, according to the letter. But that figure is quite low, said Kerby and other county officials. The letter also cites tens of thousands of dollars in damages to the city of Bonners Ferry and in the county.
There are several reasons for crop damages being low, Kerby said. First, farmers have just begun to harvest crops, so it’s too soon to know how much was lost due to water seepage into fields. And some farmers may not share their loss estimates with officials, he added.
“We have some farming members who are extremely independent and have over the years gained huge distrust,” Kerby said. “Some of the farmers who suffered losses probably did not choose to report that to the extension offices, either.”
Bob Graham, Boundary County Emergency Services incident commander, said the community at large believes crop damage to be more than $10 million. That number is based on crop damages in 1996, which were calculated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at more than $6 million and were not as bad as this year’s flooding damages, Graham said.
Graham hopes federal officials will look favorably on the disaster request. “When and if we get that designation, then that would open up some programs through (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and others that some of the damage may get some assistance on.”
But many farmers may be too busy to hand in their damage estimates, said Bob Olson, president of the Kootenai Valley Reclamation Association, a group that oversees the 14 drainage districts in Boundary County.
“I’m guilty there. I haven’t turned in my estimates, either,” said Olson, a farmer who grows everything from winter wheat to lentils to bluegrass. “I just haven’t had the time to do it. I haven’t had the combine out there to see how bad the yields were out there. … You can pick figures out of the air just by looking at stuff, but in some cases the drowning may not be as bad as it seemed.”