Idaho Transportation Dept. Hit With Fines Again

The 2006 consent decree was the result of Clean Water Act violations by the transportation agency and its contractor from 2001 to 2003, committed during the Mica to Bellgrove Highway 95 realignment project in northern Idaho.

In that case, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined the transportation department and its contractor a total of $895,000 for numerous stormwater management problems and resulting discharges that harmed the Mica Creek watershed and violated the terms of EPA's national Construction General Permit.

"The provisions spelled out in the consent decree were meant to correct the fundamental, systemic problems that led to our initial case,” said Elin Miller, EPA's Region 10 administrator, from her office in Seattle.

"The Construction General Permit for stormwater is a key tool to preventing water pollution and protecting Idaho's lakes, rivers and streams from polluted construction site runoff," she said.

Under the existing consent decree, ITD is required to provide stormwater training to its personnel, implement new self-inspection protocols, improve communication with its contractors and submit an annual report to EPA detailing its compliance.

In its first annual report submitted in 2007, the transportation agency disclosed a large number of violations from 2006, said the EPA.

The additional $325,000 in penalties resulted from failure by ITD and its contractors to train environmental personnel in a timely way, failure to conduct self-inspections as required, and failure to document compliance with stormwater requirements.

ITD claims it has recently taken corrective actions to try to prevent a repeat of the violations.

The Mica Creek Experimental Watershed is a paired and nested catchment study basin, privately operated by Potlatch Corporation. It is located in northern Idaho about 42 miles southeast of Coeur d'Alene.

The experimental watershed encompasses the Mica Creek and the West Fork of Mica Creek catchments, which are tributaries to the St. Joe River. In 1990, researchers at the University of Idaho, in cooperation with managers at the Potlatch Corporation, began work to evaluate the cumulative effects of modern timber harvest practices. Current studies focus on harvest impacts on water quality and quantity.

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