http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/articles/2005/08/05/news/news01.txt
August 5, 2005
Bonner County Daily
Bee (Idaho)
Lack of legal notice helped foil weed
plan
By KEITH KINNAIRD
News editor
DEQ also sought delay because of swim classes
SANDPOINT -- A lack of legal notification about revised plans
to use herbicide to combat milfoil off City Beach appears to
have played a role in the demise of the noxious weed control
project.
Bonner County neglected to have published legal notices of
the project, which prevented the Idaho Department of Environmental
Quality from issuing a permit for the controversial project,
according to June Berquist, a water quality compliance officer
at DEQ in Coeur d'Alene.
State law requires the county to place legal advertisements
in the newspaper to help notify residents of the milfoil control
effort.
County officials said this week DEQ denied the permit, but
Bergquist said the department is declining to issue the permit
until the legal notification requirement is satisfied.
"The public needs to be notified correctly," Bergquist
said on Thursday.
The proposal to use a granular herbicide called Sonar on infestations
has become as tangled as the thick beds of weeds that are clogging
the small bay at City Beach.
Berquist said the county initially planned to do the project
earlier this summer but it was pushed back after a contractor's
bid was rejected by the county commission. The county revised
the plan with new application dates, but Bergquist said the
department had trouble getting maps of the proposed treatment
area.
The first set of maps weren't detailed enough, while the second
set were illegible when they were faxed to DEQ, Bergquist said.
Meanwhile, DEQ still had questions about how the county would
control and monitor the application of the time-release granules.
Bergquist said DEQ received the necessary maps, but the legal
notice issue remained unresolved, which left the department
with no choice but to put off a decision on the permit.
Moreover, DEQ objected to the use of Sonar while the city's
Parks & Recreation Department swimming program was under
way, which would have resulted in a delay anyway.
Though approved for use in Idaho, Bergquist said Sonar is a
relatively new product.
"It's new to Idaho; it's new to North Idaho and we wanted
to proceed very cautiously with it," she said.