'Millions of dollars are at stake'

COEUR d’ALENE — Lawmakers have been working on legislation that would allow the continued use of submersible pumps on Idaho lakes until new technology can be found to replace them, but that effort hit a snag last week.

According to Sen. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, his draft legislation may have inadvertently ruffled some feathers on the Idaho Electrical Board, which establishes state code for the electrical industry statewide.

Nonini was planning to introduce a piece of legislation last week that would provide a grace period for lakefront property owners who use submersible pumps to irrigate their properties. It would provide time to find new technology to replace the pumps the state is concerned about.

“I was going to introduce my bill on Wednesday, but I found out that the chair of the electrical board wasn’t too happy with it,” Nonini said, explaining an oversight that may have caused the strife. “They have called an emergency board meeting on Monday. I heard they felt like we were trying to go over the head of the board. They got pretty worked up.”

Nonini said electrical board members were emailing legislators to try and kill his bill.

“I think it is all being worked out now,” Nonini said. “We are going to bring this to the board on Monday and try to straighten things out.”

Nonini said nobody was trying to sidestep the electrical board. They were communicating with the Idaho Division of Building Safety, which is the board’s enforcement arm.

Nonini said he is hearing from numerous lakeshore property owners who are concerned about the state’s plan to start phasing out submersible pumps as way to irrigate, or even in some cases, provide drinking water to entire communities on the lake.

He said he was working quickly to try and buy those homeowners some time before the Legislature adjourns later this spring, but their oversight set things back a little.

“I think we can get it resolved though,” he said.

Tom Torgerson, president elect of the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors, said the issue is something his association would like to see fixed.

“The repercussions of this are astronomical,” he said. “They don’t understand the millions of dollars that are at stake here.”

Torgerson said if the pumps are banned, every lakefront home that has one would be out of compliance with state code and those pumps would have to be replaced if the homeowner went to sell the home.

But real problem is there are no submersible pumps certified for that use, and there is no criteria available to certify a pump for that use.

Nonini’s bill would give lakefront property owners and others the time they need to work with the pump industry and the regulators to find an amenable solution.

That work is already underway.

Rand Wichman, executive director of the Coeur d’Alene Lakefront Property Owner Association, said his organization is also supporting Nonini’s efforts to find a legislative solution.

“It was brought to our attention even before the state decided to ban the pumps,” he said. “That got us looking at the issue.”

Wichman said they understand the state’s safety concerns, but he hopes the legislature will understand that people have been using submersible pumps on Lake Coeur d’Alene for decades without any known electrocution issues.

“It’s a real issue and we certainly understand that,” he said. “But it’s not like we are killing a bunch of swimmers.”

Wichman said his group has met with electricians who say it is possible to get shocked by swimming around submersible pumps, and they certainly want to do something to eliminate that risk, but they need time to do that.

Rand is part of small group of people trying to find a resolution to the issue. He said there are entire communities that rely on submersible pumps to power their water systems all over Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“We are talking about big developments like Gozzer Ranch, whose whole water system relies on a huge bank of submersible pumps.”

He said if there is nothing available that is rated for that use, people are going to have to replace their entire submersible systems with pump systems that are stationed on land.

Right now, he said, the state doesn’t even have a process to evaluate what pumps would be safe.

“We just don't want them shutting them off or prohibiting their use until we figure this out,” he said.

Allen Worst, vice president of RC Worst & Co., said his family has been installing underwater pumps for 40 years. In fact, his father helped develop the rules for wiring underwater pumps in Idaho.

Worst said he recently contacted the state to discuss those underwater wiring rules and that may be why officials are looking more closely at submersible pumps.

“I think that discussion facilitated some additional attention on the whole submersible pumping procedure,” he said, adding the state discovered there was no way to certify them using the National Electric Code, Universal Laboratories or manufacturers, which is what regulators use to set policy. “Through that discussion, I believe they decided to do away with the traditional pumping system.”

He said the only alternative available today is a ground based system, but those systems have problems with freezing and losing their prime.

“We have done a few of those and they are not ideal,” he said.

Worst and Scott Jessick, who works for Worst, have been in contact with the engineer who wrote the submersible pump criteria for Universal Laboratories, who said the criteria would have to be rewritten to clarify the pumps are appropriate for the application they are being used for.

Worst said that could take some time, and the alternative is trying to find a pump manufacturer who would certify their own pumps for submersible irrigation systems.

“But manufacturers are saying they won’t approve of that use because they don't want to incur the liability,” he said.

Still, Worst said he thinks the technology exists to make the pumps safe, but it could take time to prove that. He said beefing up the ground fault protection system could be a solution.

“We haven’t had a lot of issues with swimmers,” he said. “But it’s my position that we would like to protect everything we can. We would like to find a solution to protect human life.”

“If we continue to do it, we need to do it right.”

Bill Hatch, spokesman for the Idaho Division of Building Safety, said the Idaho Electrical Board is not real happy with the way Nonini’s legislation is drafted, and that is certainly what prompted the special meeting that will be held on Monday.

“They set up a teleconference meeting, but I think the attorney who wrote the legislation is planning on attending this meeting in person,” Hatch said.

Nonini said he also plans to attend the meeting and he is optimistic.

“I think we can get this all sorted out,” he said.