Kootenai County Board of Commissioners

The Kootenai County Board of Commissioner are universally known to be hard-working and conscientious about their official work. In mid July 2020, Kootenai County Community Development submitted to this Board its recommendation for approval of the Bayshore Estates project with its 57 septic tanks.

Greensferry Stakeholders immediately appealed to the commissioners for an emergency hearing to be held before final deliberations on the Bayshore Estates proposal. Stakeholders asked for the opportunity to introduce to the commissioners new information from the Department of Water Resources concerning Greenferry well status within the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. On July 30, 2020, by unanimous vote, the commissioners granted the requested emergency hearing.

Submitted to the commissioner’s office in preparation for the requested hearing are 291 individual letters and signed petitions from people who depend upon Greenferry Water District wells. However, Stakeholders have not yet had an opportunity to come before the commissioners on the Bayshore Estates Subdivision matter due to a number of remanded hearings that resulted from actions taken by DEQ and the Greensferry Water and Sewer District concerning nutrient pathogen studies, etc.

In early September 2023, Greenferry Stakeholders delivered to each of the three county commissioners (Brooks, Duncan and Fillios) our latest neighborhood petition with 193 signatures asking these officials to find a way to protect the Greenferry water aquifer under the pending Subsurface Sewage Disposal Ordinance ORA22-002. This ordinance restricts septic system density over the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer to one per five acres in areas where there is no approved public sewer system available.

On September 8, 2022, when County Commissioners (Brooks and Duncan) met to approve ORA22-002, a sizeable number of Greenferry Stakeholders, including two Greenferry Water and Sewer Board officials, attended that public hearing. Stakeholders who spoke told the commissioners that the ordinance is important but that it does not protect Greenferry water wells due to the inaccurate SVRP Aquifer boundary of 1978 used to delineate SVRP territory affected by this law.

Nevertheless, upon advice of the county attorney, Commissioners Bill Brooks and Leslie Duncan adopted Ordinance ORA22-002 with its incorrect SVRP boundary designation, once again leaving Greenferry water without protection of the 5-Acre Rule to be enforced by this ordinance for all other SVRP Aquifer public water sources.