Officials urge faster byway work

SANDPOINT – Elected officials from across North Idaho, including the governor, asked federal and state agencies Monday night to speed up approval of the Sand Creek Byway – a controversial project to reroute truck traffic away from downtown Sandpoint.

They argued that the nonstop route is critical to transportation, commerce, economic development and safety.

Yet opponents countered that the alternative highway would jeopardize water quality, wildlife and the pristine waterfront image that brings economic benefits to the resort town. Critics also said that the Idaho Transportation Department’s proposal lacks scientific details to prove that dredging won’t harm wetlands, and the creek that flows south through downtown and into Lake Pend Oreille.

“It’s more faith-based than scientifically sound,” said Pierre Bordenave of the Association of Concerned Sandpoint Businesses that opposes the Sand Creek route.

The Transportation Department is asking the Idaho Department of Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permits to dredge and fill parts of Sand Creek to make way for the 2.1 mile route and bike path.

About 200 people attended the lands department and corps’ three-hour joint public hearing at Sandpoint High School. The Department of Lands has 30 days to make a decision while the corps could take up to 120 days. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality also must rule that the project won’t harm water quality.

All the neighboring towns, including Bonners Ferry, asked the agencies to expedite issuing the permits as did Idaho’s two U.S. senators and Gov. Jim Risch, who sent letters to the hearing, as did U.S. Rep. and Gov.-elect Butch Otter.

Sandpoint Mayor Ray Miller said Sand Creek has always been a regional transportation hub even when Indians roamed the area.

He then joked that the Egyptians built the great pyramids in half the time that it has taken Sandpoint to get a bypass.

“What better use of public land could there be?” Miller asked.

This is the second time ITD has asked the agencies for the permits. ITD withdrew its initial application in December after it added the dredging plans.

Transportation officials have tried to make the project more aesthetically appealing by lowering the route’s profile, growing vegetation along the proposed retaining walls and adding bike paths and other amenities.

But in order to do that, they need to extend the shoreline into Sand Creek, taking about 2.7 acres of creek bed. The fill would displace water from the winter channel, so there are plans to dredge a new channel. Some opponents questioned if that would leave the channel wide enough for boat traffic in the summer.

Most residents agree that a bypass is needed to eliminate logging trucks, cattle haulers and tractor-trailer rigs from downtown and its 90-degree turns. At issue is the location of that bypass.

Bill Lewis has lived in Sandpoint for 65 years and used to play in Sand Creek as a child.

He said the first environmental impact statement for the Sand Creek route was done in 1972.

“Why has it taken 33 years?” he said, referring to the approval of the Sand Creek route. “The reason why is it does not make sense. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now.”