Bill would add protection to aquifer

BOISE – Idaho lawmakers are weighing a bill to allow creation of an aquifer protection district to guard the sole source of drinking water for a half-million people in Spokane and Kootenai counties.

Surging growth in North Idaho makes the proposal especially needed, said Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, who is a co-sponsor of the legislation along with Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, and Sen. Dick Compton, R-Coeur d’Alene.

The drinking water of the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer is at risk from storm drains, industrial operations, unmonitored dry wells and more, Henderson said.

“In the aggregate, those represent more threat to the aquifer than the Burlington Northern refueling station,” he said. “There’s over 3,000 of these dry wells all over. There’s no money presently to pay for those to be inspected.”

The bill, HB 650, would allow district residents to be charged a fee of up to $12 a year, while businesses in the district would pay up to $24 a year. Henderson said initially the fee would be just $6 a year.

“That’s 50 cents a month,” he said. “That’s going to provide the funds for that to be done on a much-improved basis and to minimize the risk to the aquifer, to protect the quality of that very unique asset.”

The aquifer is a huge underground supply of fresh water.

Under the bill, if 50 residents file a petition asking for a district to be formed, county commissioners would form a study committee. If the committee recommends formation of the district, that still would be up to commissioners.

Commissioners would appoint an advisory board to make recommendations on how the district’s funds should be spent. They would go to projects designed to prevent contamination of the aquifer and preserve it as a resource.

Nonini stressed that a clause in the bill says the district has no power to levy taxes or establish regulations.

Idaho has been paying more than $90,000 a year in state general funds for Panhandle Health District aquifer protection efforts, but legislative budget writers have warned for two years that some local source must replace those funds. The aquifer protection district would do that and more, so the bill could result in a $90,000-a-year savings to the state budget.

“I’m supporting it because it provides a mechanism to fund what we’re doing now to protect the quality of the aquifer,” said Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, who serves on the House Resources Committee. “This basically puts it as a user fee.”

Sayler said, “I think it’s a good bill overall. It puts pretty tight controls on the process, yet it does allow the funding to be raised to protect that sole-source aquifer.”

The bill was introduced after it was changed to apply only to the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.

“There was some concern among some legislators; they weren’t sure they wanted their county commissioners to do it,” Nonini said.

Southern Idaho lawmakers in particular said their counties already have groundwater management districts. But those deal with water quantity, not quality.

“I was probably a little naïve in thinking we could try to include everybody and get broad support,” Nonini said.

The bill now covers counties only with a state-designated “Sensitive Resource Aquifer.” The Rathdrum aquifer is the only one in the state with that designation.

The measure was introduced in the House Resources Committee late last week without objection.

“I was quite pleased with the questions and the comments of the committee,” Nonini said. “It was overwhelmingly positive.”

“We were making lots of little changes, little fine-tuning things, because obviously we wanted it to fly,” Henderson said.