Corps seeks access past gate to reservoir

In an Oct. 9 email to Port of Whitman County properties and development manager Debbie Snell, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers geographer John Gordon informed the port to remove what he called access restrictions on corps land.

Gordon, corps geographer and park ranger in the Clarkston office, referenced two county road signs and a padlock on a gate on a road that leads to a water reservoir on a hill by the Port of Wilma.

Port manager Joe Poire said the padlock has been on that gate to that water tank since the late 1970s and doesn’t remember when the county put up the signs.

Gina Baltrusch, corps public affairs specialist, said the corps wildlife biologists routinely check Habitat Management Units.

“Part of the job is to check on habitat lands and he evidently just got around to that property on the list,” Baltrusch said. “It’s a typical process.”

She said when the corps puts its own locks on the gate, it will be “daisy chained” so other people can get through the gate using their own padlock keys.

In an Oct. 14 response to the corps, Snell said the port had no problem with a corps’ lock on the gate.

The email from Gordon read:

“Our lead wildlife biologist noticed some access restrictions on government land and asked me to look into having them removed. The area between the Port of Wilma and the nearby water tank is federal land and open for public use. If either of the two signs belong to the port authority or Whitman County, we would kindly request that they be removed.

“The gate leading to the water tower has several padlocks on it, however none of them belong to the US Army Corps of Engineers. This gate and the attached fence restrict access for government personnel to federal property, albeit this is a modest amount of restricted land access.

“Unless you have an objection, we wish to add a USACE padlock to the sequence. The gate properly belongs along the boundary, however we are not requesting any movement of the gate or the fence at this time. Addition of our padlock is solely for access to the government land behind the gate and up to the boundary. USACE personnel have no reason nor right to access land beyond the boundary.”

Baltrusch said the corps land in question amounts to 29 acres that runs a little more than four miles along the north shore of Lower Granite Lake and she doesn’t know when that particular HMU was last checked by corps biologists.

Corps personnel are still working during the federal shutdown, using last year’s unexpended appropriations until those funds run out, according to Baltrusch. If funds run out, corps personnel will then be furloughed, she said.