BONNERS FERRY — After people voiced concerns about environmental contamination, air quality and other factors, Boundary County commissioners will consider whether to revoke a conditional use permit issued to a furniture manufacturer in Naples.

About 100 people gathered Wednesday in the Bonners Ferry High School auditorium, where commissioners heard two appeals regarding the conditional use permit of Panhandle Door Inc., a manufacturer of cabinet doors and drawers.

Appellants Kelli Martin, Jeffery Steinborn and Jim Dewberry allege that PDI has contaminated the local environment and created health risks for nearby residents.

In the early 2000s, Martin’s parents moved to Boundary County and settled on three wooded acres, adjacent to the property where PDI now operates. Martin’s children grew up in their grandparents’ house in Naples.

“We never saw the neighbors,” she said. “I couldn’t see them through the trees.”

Martin said she left the state in 2018, but returned in 2022, after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She said she was shocked to see how the neighboring property, where a small family cabinetmaking business previously operated, had transformed. Most of the trees that once isolated neighbors have disappeared. But what stood out the most was the smell.

“It smelled like someone had spray painted the inside of my parents’ house,” she said. “The smell was so strong that it hurt my nose and throat.”

Martin’s parents have since died. She said she believes environmental factors contributed to the health problems they experienced in their later years.

“They are gassing lacquers and paints on the sides of the building,” she said. “Huge fans blow less than 20 meters from my parents’ house. Six years of blowing smoke directly at us.

Public records show several neighbors filed complaints about the business, citing concerns about air quality and hazardous materials.

“Panhandle Door/Maveric in Naples appears to be a chronic conflict between neighbors, although the claims may have merit,” a DEQ employee wrote in a June email. “I think I remember more bad actions on the part of Panhandle Door/Maveric than I could find in the complaint tracking system.”

After inspecting the site last fall, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality sent PDI owner Nelson Mast a warning letter notifying him of seven “apparent violations” of the rules and Idaho Hazardous Waste Standards.

These violations were failure to count monthly generation of hazardous waste to determine generator category, as well as failure to comply with requirements for labeling satellite accumulation areas, excess satellite accumulation area containing labeling requirements, display requirements for emergency procedures, preparedness and prevention arrangements with local authorities, preparedness. and prevention equipment requirements and failure to manage solvent-contaminated wipes as hazardous waste or comply with disposal exclusion requirements.

“We have all kinds of evidence,” Dewberry said Wednesday of the area’s alleged contamination. “We are swimming in evidence. What we don’t have is a legal team, but we will if it continues like this.

Steinborn told commissioners he believed PDI’s location was not appropriate for the company because of its location in a forestry/agricultural area.

“It’s not a mom-and-pop woodworking store anymore,” he said. “This is an industrialized business,” Steinborn said.

Don Jordan and Kathy Konek are appealing PDI’s permit due to concerns about road access and noise. Jordan and Konek own Pot Hole Road, the only access road connecting PDI to U.S. Route 2, as well as property adjacent to the manufacturing plant.

Jordan told commissioners that PDI’s expansion from a permitted employee capacity of six to eight in 2005 to 70 today has created traffic and noise conditions that have hurt the value of his property.

“If this operation continued, of course we would be fine with that,” Jordan said Wednesday, referring to PDI’s past size. “That’s not what happened.”

Jordan expressed his desire to see PDI build a dedicated road connecting the company to U.S. Route 2 and told commissioners he was concerned PDI would continue to grow, to the detriment of neighbors.

“Look at the expansion he’s made,” Jordan said of Mast. “There’s no reason to think he won’t continue.”

Mast, who purchased PDI in 2018, testified at the hearing after the appellants.

“I probably didn’t realize what I was getting into when I purchased the business, but whenever concerns arose…we always did our best to be compliant and run a clean operation,” said he declared.

Mast told commissioners he agreed Pot Hole Road was overused and said he was pursuing an initiative with the Idaho Department of Transportation to create a new access road from the highway. He adds that he did his best to limit the noise from his installation and that he considers that the allegations of contamination put forward by the second appellant are unfounded.

“We are in the right zone. Ag./Forestry authorizes what we do,” Mast said. “I don’t see any evidence or reason why we shouldn’t be where we are.”

After two and a half hours of appellants’ testimony, the commissioners waited to make a decision and agreed to reconvene on November 6. In the meantime, the commission intends to obtain more information about suspected inhalation hazards at the site and potential changes to the road. access to the property.

The hearing will resume in the Bonners Ferry High School auditorium at 6:30 p.m. on November 6.