Pilings’ removal to be careful

Before any wood pilings are removed from the Spokane River, the state of Idaho wants to perform tests to ensure the least amount of hazardous heavy metals is stirred up.

“We don’t want metals in the sediment to be disturbed,” said June Bergquist, a water quality compliance officer with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. The metals could harm fish, wildlife and water quality.

There are two ways to remove the nearly 1,000 pilings no longer needed to corral and guide logs that once ruled the waterways – nudge each piling with a barge, breaking it off at the mud line, or use divers with underwater saws.

The weathered and splintered remnants of the working waterfront have become hazards to boaters as the shoreline shifts from mills to condos and shops. The majority of the pilings, many of which have rotted off at the water line, run from the north end of Lake Coeur d’Alene downriver to the Post Falls dam, a scenic stretch of waterway popular among boaters, water skiers and vacationers.

A committee formed to develop a removal plan agreed this month to have the DEQ monitor water quality during test runs for each method, said Kootenai County Parks and Waterways Director Nick Snyder.

He’s leading the charge for a cooperative effort among government agencies, residents and businesses to develop a removal plan. Besides the removal method, the group also must decide how to pay for the work that could cost $10 to $20 per piling.

Bergquist said that the tests won’t begin until the unusually high water recedes and that the bulk of the piling removal project wouldn’t start until fall.

The DEQ, state Fish and Game, and Kootenai Environmental Alliance advocate using divers. They fear using a barge to push or pull the pilings would create too much sediment disruption, especially by the propeller wash.

The barge method was used in 2003 to remove about 700 pilings in front of the Mill River housing development.

Local residents and state agencies might be extra cautious in the wake of the April 2007 destruction of kokanee salmon spawning beds during construction of a marina in Bayview on Lake Pend Oreille. Steel pilings were pounded through the spawning beds in the bay, and the propeller wash from a construction barge turned the area into a stew of mud and fish eggs.

There’s also controversy over businessman Duane Hagadone’s proposal to dredge the Blackwell Island channel at the mouth of the Spokane River to allow for larger boats as part of a marina upgrade. Experts are testing the soil to determine whether it contains toxic heavy metals, such as lead.