Marina Dock Age

For an expansion project at Blackwell Island Marina in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Hagadone Hospitality will dredge 18,000 cubic yards of material tainted with heavy metals. It will haul the material to a landfill, instead of storing it in the Spokane River floodplain, according to a Jan. 20 report in The (Idaho) Spokesman-Review.

Hagadone Hospitality wanted to dispose of the dredged soil from Lake Coeur d’Alene in lined pits on the island, which lies where the Spokane River flows out of the lake.

Burying the soil would have required ongoing water quality monitoring and restricted the property’s future use. After a cost analysis, company officials decided that hauling the material to an approved landfill was a better option, said John Barlow, president of the Hagadone real estate holding company.

Many of the region’s environmental groups hailed the decision. “We consider this a victory for anyone who was concerned about placing a hazardous waste facility atop an island that experiences frequent flood events,” said Susan Drunheller, the Idaho Conservation League’s North Idaho associate.

The project will set the bar for future dredging, said Rick Eichstaedt, who heads the Center for Justice’s Spokane Riverkeeper program. He praised the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for the project’s stringent monitoring guidelines, which lead to Hagadone Hospitality’s decision to dispose of the contaminated dirt in a landfill.

During dredging, DEQ will require Hagadone Hospitality to use cofferdams to limit erosion, and any clean dirt dredged from the lake will be used as fill on the island.

The overall project, which will be done over six years, will enlarge and deepen the marina for large yachts. Barlow said the company still needs a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before construction can begin.