Marina permit to be revoked by U.S. Army

SANDPOINT — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has advised local conservation groups that it plans to revoke its permit for the Idaho Club’s marina and lakeside housing development at the mouth of Trestle Creek on Lake Pend Oreille.

The creek accounts for more than half of the annual bull trout spawning sites in the Pend Oreille Basin, a species protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

A 2019 permit authorized work on the Idaho Club Trestle Creek Marina, with Corps officials saying permit authorization did not extend to other portions of the project because a sufficient connection between these activities and activity requiring a Corps permit was not found.

“In August 2022, updated design information was provided for your proposed project that contains plans for development and construction that were not previously included in the drawings or documents submitted to or evaluated by the Corps in issuing the 2019 permit,” Kelly J. Urbanek, Corps regulatory division chief, wrote in a Sept. 15, letter to William Haberman of Valiant Idaho, part of the Idaho Club project.

The new designs include five waterfront single-family residential parcels, a community pavilion, and additional features such as road infrastructure.

“The Corps’ scope of analysis for the 2019 permit did not include these design items, which appear to warrant federal review,” Urbanek wrote. “Moreover, significant objections related to these new designs, raised in litigation associated with this project, were not earlier considered by the Corps in issuing the 2019 permit.”

As a result, Urbanek said the Corps was exercising its authority to continue its suspension the permit from August 2021 and propose revocation of the permit effective Sept. 26.

“No work may occur in reliance on the 2019 permit,” Urbanek said.

Valiant officials have 10 days from their receiving the letter to request a meeting with Corps officials regarding the decision. After the meeting — or if no meeting is requested — the Corps will revoke the permit.

Local conservation groups praised the decision to pull the permit.

“The Army Corps made the right call by pulling the plug on its permit for this highly destructive development,” said Whitney Palmer, a Sandpoint-based staffer for the Center for Biological Diversity. “We have to protect bull trout habitat from any project that forever alters the lake and stream these treasured fish depend on. We expect nothing less for the crucial area around Trestle Creek.”

The Corps had suspended its permit in August 2021 after the Center and ICL warned that they intended to sue over the agency’s failure to restart consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Such consultation is required by the Endangered Species Act.

The Service recently completed its biological opinion on the proposed development’s effects on bull trout. It found that the development would wound, capture and kill bull trout.

The Center and ICL sued the Corps and the Service on Aug. 25. The suit challenged both the biological opinion and the permit as being legally deficient. On Sept. 7 the groups sent another notice of their intent to sue over the Corps’ additional violations of the Endangered Species Act, in anticipation of the Corps lifting the permit’s suspension.

Once the Corps revokes the permit, any new permit for this development would need to go through proper environmental review. This would require the Corps to complete an environmental impact statement, a public interest review, full notice and comment process, and new consultation with the Service under the Endangered Species Act to ensure threatened and endangered species wouldn’t be harmed. The Corps would also need to determine the effects the project would have on wetlands and could potentially require the developer to purchase credits through a wetland mitigation bank.

“Trestle Creek and Lake Pend Oreille are gems of North Idaho and the effects of poorly planned resort development would have been a disaster. We’re encouraged that the Army Corps agreed with our concerns, and are hopeful that we can find long term solutions that instead safeguard and protect the important habitat in this area,” said Brad Smith, North Idaho director for the Idaho Conservation League.

The Corps originally permitted the private development in 2009. It includes two properties: one to the north of Trestle Creek and one to the south, consisting of a number of single-family estates, two marinas, a widened concrete boat ramp, 124 boat slips, a sewage pump and a parking lot. Several variances were authorized by Bonner County, allowing for disturbance to the lakeshore and other water quality impacts.

If built, the project would drastically reconfigure the shoreline and harm designated wetlands and designated bull trout critical habitat.

Bull trout have been protected since 1999, when they were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In 2010 the Service designated critical habitat for the trout, including Trestle Creek.