In brief: Blue Creek Bay work day today

Volunteers are needed to help plant native shrubs and grass today at the Blue Creek Bay recreation area on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The site is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Other tasks for volunteers include installing a sign, putting a roof on a kiosk and setting blocks for a retaining wall.

The work takes place from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Volunteers should bring work gloves, boots, rain gear and drinking water.

A grand opening ceremony at 12:30 p.m. will celebrate the completion of the first phase of development work on the 736 acres of public land around Blue Creek Bay. The day-use site was built with $277,000 of federal stimulus funding.

To reach the site, take Interstate 90’s Wolf Lodge/Harrison exit. Turn left at the exit, and then left onto the Yellowstone Trail. Go 2.5 miles and descend to the head of Blue Creek Bay. Turn left onto Landing Road and go about 0.8 mile to the recreation site.

The Environmental Protection Agency has scheduled two open houses and a tour to discuss the proposed Superfund cleanup for the upper Coeur d’Alene River Basin.

At the open houses, members of the public can talk to project managers and turn in written comments. Both open houses are from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The Oct. 5 open house takes place at Wallace High School Gym, No. 1 Miners’ Alley, Wallace. The Oct. 6 open house takes place at Shoshone Medical Center Health & Ed Center, 858 Commerce Drive, Smelterville.

The public tour takes place from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 6. Reservations are required for the van ride, which will stop at proposed cleanup locations and sites that have already been cleaned up.

To register, contact Debra Sherbina by Oct. 4 at (800) 424-4372, ext. 0247.

Fleeing driver injured in crash

A north Spokane man was hospitalized Friday after he led police on an early morning chase in a wooded area near St. George’s School in north Spokane.

Two Spokane police officers responding to a domestic violence call about 2:45 a.m. pursued Casey Ridge as he fled in a Ford Expedition on North Five Mile Road, said police Officer Glenn Bartlett. Ridge, approximately 40 years old, crashed into a tree and tried to flee on foot but was apprehended by the officers, Bartlett said.

In the scuffle, the three rolled down a 30-foot slope, he said. Ridge, injured in the crash, lost consciousness, and the officers sought medical assistance, Bartlett said. In order to alert others to their location, one officer fired a shot from his pistol, he said.

Ridge remained under guard at a local hospital Friday night.

Alcohol may have been a factor in the incident, Bartlett said.

The officers sustained minor injuries.