Sherwood Beach woes continue

SANDPOINT — Sherwood Beach Road and some of the Coolin landowners who rely on the route can’t seem to catch a break.

The road was damaged last year when a landowner cut into the right of way to develop access to their home, which effectively narrowed the forest road on a blind curve with an exposure to steep embankment leading to Priest Lake.

A chip sealing project on the road this summer, meanwhile, has gone sideways.

The machine which put down the chip seal material malfunctioned during the resurfacing project, which landowners said left part of the road strewn with pools of black tar.

Gary Lammers said the tar has marred boats, cars, bicycles. It was getting on people’s feet and then tracked into the Leonard Paul store.

“It was a total mess,” Lammers told the commission on Tuesday.

Bonner County Road & Bridge brought in sand to counteract the pools and limit tracking, but Lammers said it has choked the neighborhood with dust. He recently put a new finish on his home, but it became a dust magnet.

“The finish my log home now is like sandpaper because of all the dust,” Lammers said.

Duane Kennedy, owner and operator of Crown Jewel Motor Sports, said he has struggled to keep his boats free of tar.

“We’ve got nine boats. In six of them, the interiors are completely ruined,” said Kennedy.

Road & Bridge Director Gordon Bates said the sand blotter used to control tracking is a slow process with imperfect coverage. The county could shut down the road and scrape up the chip seal, but that would throw out the value of the work that’s already been done, in addition to closing down the road entirely.

“It’s extremely disruptive and that’s why we haven’t done that,” he said.

The county could put asphalt over the tar, but it would likely still come to the surface in the heat of the summer. But Bates said putting down a bushing layer of well-compacted gravel down could mitigate that.

At an estimated $80,000 it’s the costliest solution, although one-way traffic traffic could still be maintained while the work is being done.

“It would be disruptive, but nearly as disruptive of trying to scrape up the chip seal layers and start over again,” Bates said.

Commissioner Mike Nielsen advocated against closing the road so the chip seal could be taken up.

“We can’t close the road. That’s not an option for fire, for medical, for law enforcement or for commerce,” he said.

Commission Chairman Cary Kelly sympathized with the landowners’ plight. He said something would be done and encouraged them to file claims for damage.

“I realize who important roads are, particularly up in that area,” said Kelly. “There’s hardly anything more important than roads in the county other than safety, emergency services and things like that.”