Council votes to cut down tree

SANDPOINT — The saga of a controversial tree house overlooking the Kootenai River in Bonners Ferry has sprouted some new branches.

A recent land survey indicates the part of the levee where the cottonwood tree and the tree house are located do not belong to landowners Tremain Albright and Adarah Dancer.

“It’s on city property,” David Sims, Bonners Ferry’s assistant city administrator, said of the tree and its attendant house.

The city is also disputing Albright’s claims in various media interviews that it gave him permission for the structure following a public hearing in 2007.

“None of that happened,” said Sims.

Albright does not have a listed phone number and could not be reached for comment on Thursday, June 14.

The Bonners Ferry City Council unanimously voted Tuesday, June 19 to cut down the tree, Sims said.

“We’ve given Tremain until July 15 to remove anything he wants,” he said.

The tree will be removed sometime between then and Aug. 1 when the U.S. Corps of Engineers inspects the site.

The tree house is jeopardizing the city’s compliance with the levee maintenance program under which the corps covers 80 percent of the cost of routine levee repairs and 100 percent of the cost during emergency repairs.

The tree the house is perched on was targeted for removal because it threatens the integrity of the levy, according to a Feb. 23 letter from the corps.

Since the story broke, it has gone viral as a sort of David-versus-Goliath drama involving private property rights and the federal government. A Google search indicates the story has turned up on nearly 30,000 web sites.

“I still feel like this is just an action of big government,” Tremain said in one of the published media accounts.

“Over the last decade, we’ve received about a million dollars in dike work from the corps so it’s pretty important to us. We want to stay in the program,” said Sims.

It’s also unclear if the land survey will simplify the matter for the city.

“I think that it will, but I’m afraid Tremain might intensify his efforts,” said Sims.

More online

Editor’s note: The city of Bonners Ferry has compiled correspondence, reports and other documents related to the tree house controversy. It can be downloaded in a portable document format from The Daily Bee’s website http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/news/local/article_22a72c74-b6b0-11e1-bf63-0019bb2963f4.html