ITD rejects claims about mishandled bypass work

SANDPOINT - The Idaho Transportation Department is shutting down a U.S. Highway 95 bypass opponent's claims that environmental safeguards aren't being followed for work in and around Sand Creek.

Pierre Bordenave asserts a sediment fence was installed backwards when crews put into place a water-filled dam to keep the creek from infringing on the work area and vice versa.

Bordenave, a land use professional who is involved with the redevelopment of The Idaho Club and other projects, also blasted ITD for allowing heavy equipment to remain in the creek during the Thanksgiving holiday.

"I recognize that this project was rubber stamped by the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be charged with protecting the water quality and water resources of our state, and permits for this project were derived from political pressure rather than by scientific justification," Bordenave said in a sarcastic e-mail regarding the alleged deficiencies.

Complaints about the initial work on the Sand Creek Byway made their way to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But state transportation officials maintain that the criticisms are off base.

The silt fence, for instance, was not a Best Management Practice for controlling sediment as Bordenave had assumed.

"The dams are the BMPs to contain any silted water that results from dredging. The fence was placed only as a way to indicate, for the equipment operators, the location of the channel realignment dredging," Ed Florence of ITD said in a Dec. 2 letter to the corps.

Florence added that the project's Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan does not prohibit heavy equipment from sitting idle in the creek bed as long as it's checked daily for leaks of petroleum products, which was done.

Bordenave also attempted to make hay with an excavator getting stuck in the mud last week. But Ken Sorensen, ITD's resident engineer, said that heavy equipment working in muddy conditions will sometimes encounter trouble.

Sorensen was unfazed by the criticisms and acknowledges that the bypass is a high-profile project.

"Lots of people are watching," he said on Thursday.