Hot Springs landing work is a go

Blaine County Commissioners signed the dotted line of a $153,775 grant to overhaul Magic Reservoir’s Hot Springs Landing Monday.

The Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation money offered last May will buy a new boat ramp, docks, parking lot and road at the landing west of U.S. Route 20.

Blaine County Recreation District will have to match 10 percent of the grant sum, which, even with $10,000 help promised by the commissioners, will strain its budget.

"Our funds are so tight," rec district director Mary Austin Crofts said.

However, Crofts said the offer was too good to decline and the rec district will give its chosen engineering firm, Boise’s Forsgren Associates Inc, the OK to start working on the project.

Construction will not start until fall to avoid interfering with the heavy use during summer boating season.

The one hitch, a tiny stream of water running through the middle of the parking lot in the spring, can be taken care of cost effectively, engineer Jim Koonce told commissioners.