Clear Springs approval outrageous

Dear editor:

I wish to express my utter disappointment, loss of confidence in elected officials, and yes, anger at our Board of County Commissioners concerning approval of the Clear Springs Subdivision.

I'm not the only one feeling this way. About 200 families in this area who petitioned against it and the many people who testified against it are also incredulous about its approval, reversing the Elmore County Planning and Zoning's unanimous vote to disapprove.

This subdivision is proposed to be built northwest of Mountain Home between I-84 and the Idaho Power gas-fired power plant. It is currently zoned as Agriculture B land. It allows subdivision of the land, but it was never intended to be developed for a high-density housing development. The intent was to retain the character of this and surrounding agricultural lands, yet enabling the owner to sell or subdivide the land into 5, 10, 20 or larger acre lots, which are in high demand.

High density housing, of about 200 houses, with septic tanks in this area is no doubt not in high demand, especially now in this deteriorating economy.

We land owners and residents of this area are gravely concerned about basically three issues:

1. Water quality, pollution of our well water by high concentration of septic tanks in these very permeable, gravely soils right beneath the topsoil (soil analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture).

2. Loss of our well water due to the high requirement for water to serve a large subdivision as this. Many of the domestic wells in this area already had to be drilled deeper and others already have some contamination from ditch and canal water seepage into their wells (designated as a critically short water area by the Idaho Department of Water Resources ever since 1982 and the U.S Geological Survey which indicates the groundwater path beginning in this area and extending past Mountain Home Air Force Base toward the Snake River).

3. Greatly increased traffic, generated by 1,770 additional vehicle trips per day, with ingress and egress basically on two roads -- NW Beaman Street and Mashburn Road. Daily traffic of school buses, Hiddleston Drilling rigs and maintenance trucks, gravel trucks, highway district trucks and equipment, Simplot farming operations equipment and police and other emergency vehicles already cause a nightmare of traffic on these two main roads.

I spent my professional career at Mountain Home Air Force Base civil engineering, witnessing all eight water wells at the base declining over the years as much as 50 feet or more and they are still failing. There is a connection with these agency reports I cite above and Mountain Home Air Force Base. Whatever happens in regards to water recharge and underground water pumping near and around this proposed subdivision affects all the area around the airbase and the base itself.

This subdivision was presented to the Elmore County Planning and Zoning Commission as a request for a Conditional Use Permit and preliminary plat approval. It was unanimously disapproved by the commission after hearing all of the public testimony in April 2008. The applicant immediately filed an appeal to the Board of County Commissioners and the Board approved the Conditional Use Permit application and the request for approval of the preliminary Plat on Sept. 18, 2008.

The Board of Commissioners seemed to not consider at all the testimony of and petitions of over 200 families living near and around the proposed subdivision.

The board merely added some conditions -- one phase to be accomplished before another and some paving requirements for a few streets within the proposed subdivision and a few other conditions. It appears that the board merely "greased the skids" for the developer to go ahead with a few conditions thrown in here and there and addressed not one issue that was of grave concern by the people whose lives will forever be negatively affected by this ill-conceived high-density subdivision.

John Barrutia