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KINGSTON, ID — The Kingston-Cataldo Sewer District is redefining what infrastructure can achieve. By pivoting to an innovative land application treatment approach, the District is securing future capacity and self-sustainability while cultivating a thriving local ecosystem.Faced with current user rates averaging $72 per month per housing unit, the district began exploring alternative treatment methods to control future costs while maintaining effective...

Winter in North Idaho has been an odd one this year. From December flooding to an unseasonably dry & warm February, to several severe windstorms, North Idaho has certainly been through the ringer. Precipitation and snowpack deficits over the past four years have also contributed to a multi-year drought in our region that persists today.Despite late-season snowfall, snowpack remained below...

To many people, December’s flooding may have looked like the end of North Idaho’s drought. In reality, the region’s water picture remains fragile—and in some ways, the flood masked deeper problems.North Idaho has experienced some level of drought since the summer of 2021. While only water year 2024 saw well-below-normal snowpack overall, most recent years have been marked by earlier-than-normal...

The Dayrock Complex is located near Wallace within Ninemile Creek Basin watershed and is included in the Upper Basin of the Bunker Hill Mining and Metallurgical Superfund site. This site offers a real-world example of how the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) guides decisions and mitigation when cleanup efforts affect historic resources.  During the Historic Resource Survey, 18 historic-period architectural...

The Silver Valley has a rich history dominated by silver, lead, and zinc mining, which began in the late 1870s and established the region as the world's largest silver producer by the early 1900s. Visitors come to explore this past, touring local museums to learn about mining practices as well as visit old mining structures that are peppered throughout the...

Written by guest author: Cathy Gidley, North Idaho Program Manager for Trout UnlimitedIn 1879, AJ Prichard discovered gold in Prichard Creek, setting off the mining rush in the Coeur d’Alene basin. Prichard Creek is a tributary to the North Fork Coeur d’Alene River and was the site of several hard rock mines and mill sites in the 1900s. Placer and...

While flooding in North Idaho is not uncommon, high flow events like the one that occurred in December 2025 can have consequences that extend beyond immediate water damage. When high flows sweep through the Coeur d’Alene River Basin, they interact with a landscape shaped by more than a century of mining activity. Historic discharges mean that floodwaters have the potential...

The flood event that struck the Coeur d’Alene River Basin around December 11, 2025, was unusual—not because flooding itself is rare in North Idaho, but because of when and how it occurred.December 2025 brought historically high air temperatures and was the second wettest December on record across most SNOTEL sites in the Basin. A SNOTEL site is an automated remote...

By the early 1930s, much of the Coeur d’Alene River was effectively lifeless. Fish had disappeared, plankton was dying, and long stretches of the river showed little sign of recovery. In 1933, federal scientists confirmed that mine-contaminated water was deadly to aquatic life—but their most alarming discovery came when they looked beyond the water itself, to what remained behind.The greatest...

During the summer of 1933, Dr. Ellis and a team of scientists from the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries launched one of the first systematic investigations into the effects of mine waste on the Coeur d’Alene River system. Their work sought to understand how decades of mining activity had altered the watershed’s chemistry and biology.The study began with a review of...