SANDPOINT - A showdown is heating up between a Sandpoint marina owner and the state over docks in Sand Creek that are in the path of the U.S. Highway 95 bypass.

The Idaho Transportation Department contends the docks are encroaching on public right of way, but Ralph Sletager insists they are properly permitted structures which have become a pawn in his battles with the state over the Sand Creek Byway.

Sletager's development company is suing the Idaho Department of Lands over its issuance of an encroachment permit for the bypass, although he maintains he is not trying to stop the re-routing project. Sletager said he's been critical of the project in the past and is now being "singled out" by the state.

The dock dispute threatened to boil over on Wednesday, when representatives from ITD went to inspect the docks' shore power and water lines in preparation for their removal. They were escorted by Idaho State Police, which Sletager alleges forced a potential physical confrontation.

"I am simply outraged and afraid at what I see as my government run amok. The state's unfair actions and the presence of police officers should send chills down the spine of anyone who owns property in Idaho," Sletager said in a statement issued on Friday.

Sletager, however, had previously sent ITD and bypass contractor Parsons RCI letters warning them to stay off his property and threatening arrest and civil liability, according to voluminous correspondence in the matter.

Barbara Babic, ITD's District 1 spokeswoman, referred inquiries about the dispute to the department's counsel, Deputy Attorney General Karl Vogt, who was not immediately available for comment on Friday.

Sletager's attorney, John Finney, said Sletager's docks have been there for decades and have undergone the permit process several times over.

"It's his position that he has property rights to the docks and if they want them removed, they have to go through the legal process, which is condemnation," Finney said on Friday.

Sletager conservatively estimates the loss of the 25 docks located near the mouth of the creek will cost him up to $500,000 over 10 years.

"This is in spite of the fact that the state attorney general's office has given sworn testimony that the Sandpoint Bypass encroachment permit promised to cause 'no adverse impact,'" Sletager said in the statement.

Battle lines over the docks were drawn as long as four years ago, which Sletager said gave ITD ample time to resolve the issue.

Nearly two dozen letters have gone back and forth between ITD's legal advisers and Sletager in the intervening years. The two sides' positions, however, have changed little.

The state asserts the docks are a bootleg encroachment on its right of way and must be removed in order to clear the way for construction of structures for the southbound portion of the bypass.

"There is no serious argument by Mr. Sletager that could withstand even the lowest level of scrutiny that ITD somehow lacks a valid right-of-way for this project," ITD's private counsel, Murray Feldman, said in a Nov. 7 letter to Finney.

Finney contends the state is attempting to do an end zone run around his client's rights.

"My clients believe there is substantial behind the scenes machinations to claim that the marina slips are not permitted and to violate the constitutional guarantees against the taking of private property for a public use without just compensation," Finney said in an Oct. 21 letter to Feldman.