Tribal Court to hear sewage dispute

COEUR d'ALENE - A U.S. District Court judge ruled Thursday that the Coeur d'Alene Tribal Court has jurisdiction in a dispute involving the "application of domestic sewage" to property within the Coeur d'Alene Reservation.

The dispute began when Spokane-based company Gobers LLC started "trucking untreated and untested sewage from Spokane-area domestic septic tanks and portable toilets" to land owned privately by St. Isidore Farm LLC, the Tribe said in a Friday news release.

Heather Keen, a Coeur d'Alene Tribe spokeswoman, said the farm property is directly off U.S. 95, just a mile north of tribal headquarters in Plummer.

The Tribe said the business and farm were "disposing raw sewage and human feces" onto the property.

From late June 2012 through October, Keen said, Gobers "spread" a total of 1.28 million gallons of "human waste on" the farm.

However, Gregg R. Smith, a Spokane attorney from the firm Paine Hamblen which represents Gobers and St. Isidore Farm, said no feces or solids have been spread on the ground at the farm.

He said liquid "septage," or sewage sludge, has been injected into the ground at the 273-acre farm. Crops grow on the land for cattle feed, Smith said.

"There never has been any sewage dumped on the land," Smith said.

The injection of the liquid, approximately 8 inches below the surface, has been approved by the state, he said.

Smith said the injection plan was submitted to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, and it was reviewed and approved by DEQ. The Panhandle Health District also signed off, he said.

Smith said the Tribe is likely upset that the septage comes from Spokane, and that the Tribe doesn't receive any economic benefit because Gobers and the farm are non-tribal.

Smith said the Tribe was consulted about the plan at an early stage.

He said the Tribe has "irresponsibly" misstated the facts, by claiming feces had been spread on the ground and that potential health risks exist. He said the Tribe is trying "to garner support" for its opposition to the septage injections.

Keen, of the Tribe, said the Tribal Council received numerous complaints from Indian and non-Indian members of the community regarding the odor, sanitation and the potential health risks to the community.

"It makes me sick just thinking about it," Chairman Chief Allan of the Tribe said in the news release. "It's a huge threat to public health."

Eric Van Orden, legal counsel for the Tribe, said, "We felt there was a clear health risk to tribal members and the entire community and now Gobers will have to respond to the Tribe's concerns in Tribal Court."

In addition to threats to surface and groundwater and air quality, the Tribe told U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge that there are also threats to wild game living in the area.

Smith said a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Idaho, Thomas Hess, and a professional geologist, John Monks, informed Lodge they dispute the health risks.

The Tribe said tribal code requires permission from the Tribal Council for such sewage disposal within the reservation.

The Tribe filed a complaint in Tribal Court to prevent more dumping. Gobers sued in federal court, challenging the Tribe's jurisdiction over the matter.

Lodge, in an order signed Thursday, said Gobers and the farm must "first exhaust their claims in Tribal Court before coming to federal court."

Smith said Gobers and the farm might be appealing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Within Lodge's order, the judge wrote that the Tribe adopted a resolution on March 6, "which appears to prohibit the septage disposal process being used by" Gobers and the farm.

The two argued the Tribe's more restrictive discharge provisions don't apply to non-Indian land owned by non-Indians located within the boundaries of the Coeur d'Alene Reservation.