Green Owl gets green light

SANDPOINT — A plan to close and relocate the Green Owl waste collection site  north of Priest River has been given the green light by the Bonner County commission.

The board voted on Tuesday to make a formal offer to the landowner at 911 Peninsula Road and develop an attended Dumpster site there. The new site would replace an unattended site near the Green Owl Tavern, which has been plagued by illegal dumping and reports of criminal activity.

The board’s action came in the wake of a meeting at the Blue Lake Grange in which there was overwhelming support for the move. A straw poll was conducted among the crowd.

“Absolutely everybody voted ‘yes,’” said Solid Waste Director Leslie Marshall. “No hands went up against it.”

County officials originally planned to relocate the site to the 1200 block of Peninsula, which drew strenuous objection from neighboring residents who were concerned it would drive down property values and be a multi-faceted nuisance.

The controversy led to the formation of a citizen’s advisory committee, which pored over a number of alternative sites before recommending the 5-acre parcel at 911.

“We have the money in the bank, so we’re ready to roll,” Commissioner Cornel Rasor said.

The project, estimated to cost $200,000 to $300,000, will go before the Bonner County Planning & Zoning Commission. A formal public hearing on the proposal is pending.

A common concern about relocated collection sites involves rogue trash dumping around the closed site, either out of defiance, ignorance or convenience. Marshall told the Green Owl crowd said such problems do occur, although they tend not to persist.

The Green Owl discord had tones of a more notorious site-relocation controversy in the Hope/Clark Fork area a few years ago. The quarrel dragged on for a decade, but ended peacefully with the installation of a site on the west side of Clark Fork.

That site, along with other sites such as Dufort, are fastidiously tidied and kept squared away.

“If the site is going to be built up in the Green Owl area up there is going to be half the site that they have in Clark Fork, they’re going to be incredibly impressed,” said Russ Schenck, a Clark Fork resident who’s challenging Commissioner Lewie Rich in the May 25 primary.

Planning Director Clare Marley said operations at existing sites are often scrutinized when new sites are put through the wringer.

“The better those are run, the better chances you have of approval through the hearing process because people use those as your demonstration of how they operate,” she said.