New Priest Lake floodplain maps proposed

SANDPOINT — Bonner County and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials will be teleconferencing on Friday to discuss proposed amendments to floodplain maps for Priest Lake.

The meeting is set for 9 a.m. at North Idaho College’s Sandpoint campus at 102 South Euclid Ave.

Priest Lake has lacked a precise floodplain elevation due to its remote location and relatively sparse development when floodplain maps were drafted in the 1980s.

As a result, the lake had been classified an “unnamed A zone.” They are sometimes known as “evil A zones” in surveyor parlance due to the difficulty in determining the true extent and depth of the flood risk.

The county, with the assistance of a local hydrologist, established a base flood elevation for administration purposes in the 1990s. That produced an elevation estimate of 2,445.41 feet above sea level, a figure that was accepted by the Idaho Department of Water Resources, said county Planning Director Clare Marley.

FEMA agreed to develop a more precise measurement using Lidar, a remote sensing technology that measures distances by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light.

FEMA’s analysis indicates that the base flood elevation is actually 2,445.5 feet, which is only about an inch different from the county’s estimate.

“When I saw that number I was pretty happy with the number that we had been using all along,” said Marley.

That inch of difference, however, is a mixed bag as it pertains to waterfront landowners at Priest Lake.

Some landowners could suddenly find themselves outside the floodplain, which means they won’t have to obtain flood insurance if their bank doesn’t require it. Other landowners, meanwhile, could be drawn into the floodplain, which means they may be required to obtain flood insurance.

“There will both some ‘in’ and some ‘out’ as a result of the map,” Marley said.

Marley’s department is compiling the number of affected parcels and expects those figures to be available when the county meets with FEMA on Friday.

The special meeting is for informational purposes only and no final decisions will be made regarding the floodplain or study.