Schweitzer condos still unstable after slide

The Red Cricket condominiums at Schweitzer Mountain Resort are visibly sagging after a mudslide crashed through a lower wall in mid-May.

But structural engineers have been unable to assess the extent of the damage because ground around the area is unstable, said Spencer Newton, Schweitzer Fire District chief.

“I guess the different engineers representing different facets of this whole thing are still trying to figure this out,” Newton said.

Engineers hired by the Red Cricket Condominium Association and an uphill developer most likely will investigate the site this week, he said.

Geotechnical and structural engineers have assessed the land on the hill and the exterior of the damaged building.

An investigation of the damage inside the condos must wait for dry, stable ground and for the interior of the building to be reinforced, Red Cricket Condominium Association attorney Ray Clary said.

Although the condos remain closed, Newton caught one owner entering a unit to retrieve valuables.

“I had to kick them out,” the fire chief said with a laugh.

The building is buckling, causing sliding glass doors to pop off their tracks, he said.

“The glass isn’t breaking,” Newton said.

“They’re just popping out. It continues to settle. It’s obviously still unstable.”

A road behind Red Cricket, the oldest condos at the Schweitzer ski resort near Sandpoint, remained closed last week.

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has investigated whether any mud from the slide ended up in two creeks on the hill, which could cause environmental problems, said June Bergquist, a water quality officer for the agency.

Bergquist said she couldn’t discuss the results of the investigation because the state may take enforcement action against Gary Barnes, who owns and is developing property above the slide.

The agency plans to contact Barnes regarding its findings within two weeks, she said.

Barnes had begun building a 10-unit condo complex on the hillside above Red Cricket and had excavated piles of dirt on his property, Bergquist said. His lawyer, Richard Campbell, previously said the slide was triggered by warm weather melting snow around the site, causing instability that was worsened by trees having been removed from the slope.

The May 17 slide smashed portions of the foundation on the uphill side of the condo and crashed through the garage level of the complex, but filled no living quarters.

No residents were home and no vehicles were in the garage of the three-story complex.

Campbell could not be reached for comment Thursday or Friday.

Richard Smith, president of the Red Cricket Condominium Association, declined to comment on any legal matters but said the association was working to clean and shore up the building to see if it can be salvaged.

Clary, the association’s Spokane attorney, said that although the Red Cricket insurance policy does not cover mudslides, he does not think the incident was a natural event.

“I don’t think it was a mudslide, and people need to be judicious about how they characterize the event,” he said.

He said he does not believe the cause of the damage to the condos was the slide itself, but stemmed from an “artificially created situation from an excavation site.”

“If we weren’t in a pre-litigation mode I could be more specific,” he said.

Clary said he was investigating the incident and trying to contact responsible parties, but would not name anyone.

“At the bottom of this, I’m working for 24 innocent families that have no fault,” he said.

Bergquist and officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week inspected other sites around Schweitzer Mountain.

It was a random check to see if developers or property owners might be ignoring rules on property sites, she said.

“A lot of it wasn’t looking good,” she said, regarding conditions of other developments on the hill.

“I certainly recommend that people be more attentive to how they leave construction sites over the winter.”

Bergquist said it simply takes more time and attention to make sure piles of dirt or other materials at sites are on good, level ground and won’t “just slide down the mountainside.”

Fines may be levied against a property owner or construction company if their materials end up as sediment in a water source, Bergquist said.

According to the Clean Water Act, she said, civil penalties cannot exceed $10,000 per violation or $1,000 for each day of a continuing violation.

Little Sand and Schweitzer creeks could be contaminated if property owners aren’t careful, Bergquist said.

Little Sand is a drinking water source for Sandpoint.