The Idaho Transportation Department will pay $325,000 in stipulated penalties for “numerous violations of a Clean Water Act consent decree” regarding the Mica to Bellgrove Highway 95 project in North Idaho. The EPA said ITD and its contractor ran up $895,000 in fines from 2001 to 2003 for multiple storm water management violations on the project that harmed the Mica Creek watershed. As part of the consent decree, ITD agreed to provide storm water training to its workers and implement new inspections and other measures. “The provisions spelled-out in the consent decree were meant to correct the fundamental, systemic problems that led to our initial case,” said Elin Miller, EPA’s regional administrator in Seattle. The regulations that ITD must follow are “a key tool to preventing water pollution and protecting Idaho’s lakes, rivers and streams from polluted construction site runoff,” she said. Below is the EPA’s full press release.

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