Kidd Island Bay Residents Want Out Of Dredging Plan

Members of a special taxing district created to pay for dredging in Kidd Island Bay are staging revolt.

A petition signed by 54 people - nearly half the members - was submitted to Kootenai County commissioners Wednesday. It urges the county to dissolve a local improvement district and stop work because residents can’t bear the costs.

“We feel they have an obligation to step in and stop this,” said resident Don Gray. “It’s going to cost us far too much.”

Commissioners say the multi-million dollar project to dredge the silt-and algae-choked bay is too far along. No physical work has been done, but $200,000 of a $290,000 study is complete.

“All that money has already been spent,” said Commissioner Dick Compton. If they dissolved the LID, county taxpayers would be stuck with the bill.

Instead, opponents fear, bay residents will be stuck with a bill that could someday reach $28,000 a household.

A group of residents began a campaign in 1984 to dredge the bay. It calls for removing two feet of silt over 43 acres, including a two-acre tip of a peninsula and an artificial island less than an acre in size.

The bay’s average depth now is about 5 feet.

Total project costs still are unknown, but estimates range from $1.8 million to $3.2 million. The study will determine the ultimate cost of the project.

Currently the 126 property owners now part of the LID each will pay about $2,000 to cover the cost of the study.

Based on the older total project estimates, opponents fear their share of the tab eventually could stretch to $28,000 each, Gray said.

That’s a big bite - enough to anger new residents.

Gray, a 36-year-old mining engineer moved to the bay in April 1994 from Nevada. He knew about the dredging plans, but not about the LID.

Since the assessment had not been levied, the $2,000 tab was not discovered during a title search.

“A lot of these properties have changed hands and the new residents aren’t as supportive,” Compton said. “I think there’s been quite a ground swell of people who don’t want to do this thing.”

The controversial project slowed nearly to a halt a few years ago, in part because support was eroding.

The volume of support has always been unclear. Records of surveys from the early 1990s show so few people responded that support was difficult to gauge.

Ten percent to 36 percent of those who responded typically were opposed. Support was assumed from those who didn’t respond.

That’s unfair, some residents say.

“Some vote yes, some vote no and some sit at home watching television and don’t really know what it all means,” Gray said.

Commissioners say a hearing will be held to measure support after permits are issued and before work begins.