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D2 planner Ken Helm sticks with Thorncreek

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the Idaho Transportation Department and the Federal Highway Administration earlier this month during the latest appeal on the environmental document for the US-95 expansion between Thorncreek Road and Moscow.

The notice came as a surprise to ITD District 2 (north-central daho) project manager Ken Helm, who was not expecting a decision for another 1-3 months.

“I just about passed out when I heard the news,” Helm said.

Helm has been working on the project since 1998, even jokingly putting off retirement as litigation concerning the environmental process delayed the project for decades.

Per the decision, ITD will finish right-of-way acquisition and submit a permit application regarding wetland mitigation to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After those two steps, the project can be put out to bid for construction, with work beginning as early as late summer 2019.

After construction, the route will be a divided, four-lane highway all the way from Lewiston to Moscow.

The Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition, which appealed the favorable August 2017 ruling from the U.S. District Court for Idaho nearly one year ago, has indicated that they will not appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

For Helm, that’s good news—maybe even retirement news?

Either way, he considers the project’s latest green light a victory.

“We are going to be saving lives with (the eastern route),” Helm said. “Bottom line. No matter what. And that’s our goal at ITD and FHWA — safety on our roads.”