Herbicide treatments pushed back

SANDPOINT — Herbicide treatments in the Pend Oreille this week are on hold again, Bonner County officials said on Monday.

The county planned to treat the mouth of Denton Slough in Lake Pend Oreille and a number of sites in the Pend Oreille River west of Dover. The treatment sites involve U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property.

The county initially hoped to postpone treatment of those areas until next month because flows in the river remain unusually high, which would have blunted the effectiveness of the treatments.

But the county only had permission to treat corps sites in July and August, said Brad Bluemer, Bonner County’s noxious weed superintendent. The county needed approval from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to extend the treatments into September.

Unsure whether such permission would be granted from Fish & Wildlife and with time running out, the county opted to plan for treating the sites before the month of August ended.

“It was forcing us to treat by the end of August,” Bluemer said.

Then word came that Fish & Wildlife agreed to the treatment extension.

“They up and decided early this morning that they would grant permission to treat in September,” said Bluemer, who expressed frustration that it took a month to settle the issue.