Paradise found

North Fork once again in the spotlight

KINGSTON — The North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River has once again become an epicenter of tension among residents in Shoshone County.

The once undiscovered treasure in the Silver Valley’s backyard has become very much discovered and locals don’t seem too keen on the possibility of outside gentrification.

A recent decision by the Shoshone County Planning and Zoning (P&Z) to allow a new RV park near the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Coeur d’Alene River, on potentially contaminated property, sparked a debate over the river and the people who are using it most frequently.

Comments like Cherie Card’s, which read: “The locals can't even use the river yet we pay for Washingtonians to dump all their garbage from the fun they get to have on our river. It would just make more room for them. I know I haven't enjoyed the river in about 10 years unless I'm floating and it's too crowded for that also.”

Or Mary Miller, who had her own thoughts on how the situation should be handled: “I still find it hard to believe the officials of Shoshone County can’t figure out how to charge a toll for out of staters to use the CDA River. Yes, we would need more than one. These toll points could create summer jobs. AND pay for the litter and shit those out of staters leave behind. No there should not be a RV park on contaminated property.”

While that P&Z decision is being appealed, it has also led to the formation of a new group whose sole focus is to preserve and protect the North Fork.

Dawn Wiksten, the founder of the group and the main appellant of the P&Z decision, told the News-Press the mission statement for the Friends of the River Coalition (FORC).

“Our Mission is to protect the beautiful and fragile Coeur d’Alene River Corridor,” Wiksten said. “In order to preserve the unique natural values of the river and bring awareness to the importance of preserving those values. Keeping the North and South Forks of the Coeur d’Alene river wild and beautiful is the core of our focus.”

The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has heard these complaints before and while they can’t really stop folks from out-of-state coming and enjoying the North Fork, they can speak to the idea surrounding the implementation of a usage permit or toll booth.

“Toll booths work very well for areas where access is controlled and the number of access points is limited. Toll booth expenses including structures, cost to build and man are generally low, and most users of a toll booth understand that the toll booth fees support the services behind the toll booth,” the BOCC said. “The show stopper for toll booths is that there are just too many access points on the NFCDA. Thus, implementing a system in which individuals will simply not drive around the toll booths is near impossible. In addition to not having controlled access, other implementation issues create hurdles to providing toll booths: through travelers (e.g Thompson Falls), hours/days of operation, etc. Unfortunately, a situation could be created very quickly where the cost to run the toll booths would outrun the revenue they generate.”

After toll booths, the concept of just assessing access fees similar to what various states and state and national parks already do was probably the next most favorable suggestion made to the BOCC.

“Imposing fees are a very effective way of raising revenue to pay for what are considered to be ‘additional’ services provided above and beyond ‘normal’ services. The keys to implementing such fees are to be reasonable and equitable,” the BOCC said. “It goes without saying that the fees need to match in price what the services cost. It is also important, from the county’s perspective that the fees applied to the users of the additional services.”

What generally frustrates people about this point is that the BOCC means all recreational users and not just those who are not local, which leads right into the next point the BOCC addressed.

The idea of limiting access and/or usage to select groups of people.

“Historically and into the foreseeable future, the NFCDA River area has access to and from public and private lands,” the BOCC said. “In each case, existing laws and policies govern. The county is not considering changing current access laws and policies.”

Another possible suggestion that would require any change to the current situation was the concept of the county controlling the public areas where people could put in and out of the river.

That way they could essentially control and charge users for parking, as well as maintaining garbage and facilities on those locations.

“Pay to park areas that align with river put-in and take-out locations are an excellent idea for providing needed services and collecting revenue for recreational users that float the river. The county sees this idea as having great potential,” The BOCC said. “The key will be, as solutions are moved forward, to fully examine and resolve the various issues the idea will encounter: property acquisition, providing staffing, collecting fees, enforcing misuses, commingling implementation with the existing, legal parking where the roadways about the river and funding.”

The county currently covers all costs associated with maintaining the NFCDA, but to add more enforcement to put any of these ideas into practice, the county would have to find some extra funding.

They also acknowledge that law enforcement, for as much work as they do, could tighten up their authority on the NFCDA and begin to write more citations.

“The BOCC agrees that writing citations for violations is one of the available tools and a necessary component of enforcing existing laws,” the BOCC said. “As many of the river visitors have experienced, the number of visitors during peak times greatly outnumber the number of law enforcement officials. The Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office and their staff do an excellent job with the resources at hand. From a county perspective, increasing the presence of law enforcement officers during peak times needs to be included in any plan moving forward.”

The Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office has a dedicated deputy to the North Fork during busier months of the year.

FORC will be having their first meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 5 at 6:30 p.m. in Pinehurst’s West Shoshone Park.

For more information, visit the Friends of the River 2020 Facebook page or email them at Forc2020@gmail.com.