Judge orders removal of fill at Priest Lake

SANDPOINT — A Priest Lake landowner is being ordered to remove fill he placed on the lake bed to elevate his beach and ward off erosion.

The Idaho Department of Lands filed suit against Philip Hudson last year. Hudson obtained a permit for a sea wall and some fill in 1997, but the department discovered that the fill extended across 40 feet of shoreline and into the lake by as much as 25 feet.

The state ordered for the fill to be removed in 2014, but Hudson refused the demands and filed a countersuit in which he argued that the lake’s ordinary high-water mark was altered when the Outlet Bay Dam was installed, court records show.

The state moved for summary judgment on grounds there was no material issue of fact to litigate. First District Judge Barbara Buchanan heard oral arguments on the motion on June 22 and issued a written decision on June 30, court records indicate.

Buchanan ruled that the encroaching fill was not an aid to navigation or moorage on the lake. She further ruled the state has the power to regulate encroachments on land between the ordinary or artificial high-water marks.

“Accordingly, the state of Idaho has the power, as a matter of law, to regulate and control encroachments in or above the bed of Priest Lake by requiring that a lake encroachment permit be obtained before construction of a non-navigable encroachment such as the fill at issue here,” Buchanan said in the ruling.

Buchanan filed a mandatory and permanent injunction on July 15 which orders Hudson to remove the unauthorized fill, stabilize any disturbed banks or lake bed landward of the high-water mark and implement sedimentation countermeasures while the work is being done, court records indicate.

Hudson is ordered to conduct the work between Nov. 1 and March 1, when the lake is dropped to its offseason pool elevation. Hudson is also barred from placing any more encroachments without first obtaining an IDL permit.