Hayden Lake tax wastes runneth over

Now that Hayden Lake is slowly settling back into its normal bed from a period of winter and spring flooding, now is a good time to examine the response of the local and federal governments and the cost to you, the taxpayer. Most people know that Hayden Lake is artificially pent up behind a dike. Some years it exceeds its restraints and floods out into the Richards' pasture below the dike through its spillway. Some years, like 1997 and this year, it threatens to spill further. This year, the lake began spilling into the pasture during a late January thaw and has kept it up at one level or another to date.

The tale began with the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) making a dike inspection early in the spring. The Corps noticed wave erosion of the lake-ward face of the dike, water on either side of the dike, and trees that have persisted on the dike for decades. From these observations, they soon declared the dike in imminent threat of collapse.

Emergency Services asked the local water, sewer, and road management agencies to weigh in on this issue. Local expertise that has observed this cycle before generally agreed that the dike would not collapse, although some maintenance was in order. These conclusions were based on experience with past high water. The conclusion was supported by the failure to observe a motive force for failure since water was only 2 feet different in height on either side of the dike, which has a spillway to allow such equilibration. A suggestion was made that the local highway district could complete repairs on the existing erosion on the dike face at a modest cost to its constituents. Additional protective steps, such as keeping the public off the dike, shutting down a sewer line, and establishing a no wake zone near it were recommended. A trenching project was recommended in the pasture to speed water infiltration into the aquifer.

The opinions of the federal and local experts were carried to the Kootenai County Commission. The commission ordered the protective measures be taken. The local highway district was asked to proceed with the pasture trenching. However, the commissioners ignored the local wisdom on dike failure and went with the Corps' extensive and expensive effort to place thousands of yards of additional rock on the dike. Why was this decision made when the advice of local managers who had lived through and observed similar high water events counseled otherwise? Why this decision when the Corps' own colonel saw no imminent collapse danger on his subsequent pre-project inspection?

As usual the answer is in the funding. Although the dike exists on private land, its maintenance was accepted years ago by Kootenai County. It is obvious from lakeside erosion that maintenance by the county was a nonexistent priority. A "flood emergency" gave our commissioners just the foil required to export the maintenance costs to the federal government through a Corps flood emergency "preemptive measures" project. So the county saved money while a "Cadillac" remedy for its maintenance failure was put in place. But did the taxpayer save money?

The highway district could have completed the maintenance with rock from local pits paying local contractors, with far less material, manpower, and money expended. The result would have been the same. Instead, by using the Corps, this action triggered the Corps' established expensive federal contract with a Silver Valley contractor, who shipped in rock from a pit near Osburn.

The dike was enlarged arguably over any level required, and the federal taxpayers' money footed the much larger bill for manpower and much more expensive materials.

Some people might believe it smart economics to defer the bill to the federal government. The financial scheme might be wise if we were not federal taxpayers hooked to a government whose financial ship is sinking. Each time the federal agencies prey on the locals to implement excessive projects and the local government preys on the feds to defer legitimate costs that it should incur, our federal bill gets larger and the budgetary ship sinks a bit more. Smart local government or making ourselves part of the larger problem - you decide.

Geoff Harvey is a resident of Hayden Lake.