Pumps under repair after sewage spill
Equipment failure caused several hundred gallons of sewage to spill in Bayview over the weekend. A small amount is believed to have flowed into Lake Pend Oreille, but state officials don’t believe the spill poses a risk to drinking water supplies or swimmers.
The problem was noticed about 10 a.m. Sunday when a property owner reported sewage backing up into a building, said John Tindall, with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. A local public works employee found that two of the town’s three sewage pumps had failed. In addition, the alarm system that normally would have warned of trouble had failed.
Within two hours, the mess was being cleaned up. The pumps were being fixed Monday, and water samples had been taken to test for contamination, Tindall said.
The quantity of spilled sewage was unknown, but Tindall said it was in the “few hundred gallon” range. Most seems to have overflowed into a grassy swale.
– James Hagengruber
Coeur d’Alene
23-year-old accused of kidnapping wife
A Coeur d’Alene man is being held on $250,000 bond on kidnapping and domestic battery charges for allegedly handcuffing his wife and holding her against her will.
Levi M. Wills, 23, told sheriff’s deputies he and his wife got in an argument at home and he “freaked and made some wrong moves,” according to a Kootenai County sheriff’s report.
Wills allegedly placed her in handcuffs Sunday evening, grabbed a gun and stuck it in his back pocket, then dragged her to the car.
Deputies stopped the car on the west side of Lake Coeur d’Alene about 9 p.m. after calls to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department.
A driver called police about 8:15 p.m. to report seeing a woman handcuffed in a vehicle driving on Kidd Island Bay Road near Tall Pines Road. The driver tried to follow the vehicle but lost it near Loffs Bay Road.
A second person called 911 to report that a friend had called to say she was being held against her will.
– Staff reports
Boise
Four nominated for state high court
The Idaho Judicial Council has sent four names to Gov. Butch Otter for consideration for the opening on the state Supreme Court at the end of July, when Chief Justice Gerald Schroeder will retire.
The nominees are Michael Gilmore, deputy attorney general; Joel D. Horton, 4th District judge; Warren E. Jones, a Boise attorney; and Clive Strong, deputy attorney general. The four were selected after the judicial council last week interviewed 19 candidates.
Otter doesn’t know when he’ll make the choice. “He wants to make sure he gets the right person, the right fit for the court,” Otter’s press secretary, Jon Hanian, said Monday. “He’s not looking for an activist judge. He’s looking for a strict constitutionalist.”
The judicial council now will accept applications for a second high court seat, which will open when Justice Linda Copple Trout retires Aug. 31.
For both positions, the governor’s appointee will serve the remainder of the terms, then stand for election in 2008.
– Betsy Z. Russell