COEUR d'ALENE - Actually removing the dike trees is going to cost a lot less than $1.6 million. It's getting out all the random roots and stumps and then rebuilding Rosenberry Drive afterward that's driving up the cost of the project.

Eric Olson, project engineer for Ruen-Yeager and Associates Inc., detailed on Wednesday the estimated costs regarding removing trees along the Dike Road.

The city of Coeur d'Alene penciled in spending around $100,000 when it first learned of the federal order to remove the trees along 3,100 feet of lakefront roadway.

"That's not that far off on actually removing trees and brush," Olson said. "It's removing the entire root system and stumps" that gets more expensive.

Actually, pulling out the 705 trees - the total number the firm counted - could cost around $200,000.

But 179 tree-less stumps stuck in the embankment would have to go too, and after removing all of those, the levee would have to be reconstructed, and Rosenberry Drive re-paved.

Unfortunately, if the Army Corps of Engineers' order — which is being fought every step of the way by a community organized ad hoc committee and others — goes through, the city couldn't pick and choose which steps, or stumps, to implement.

It would have to be all, or nothing.

Of the 705 trees that the engineering firm tallied as part of its contract with North Idaho College, 163 could potentially be spared. Those trees are small enough not to have to be removed, but the practicality of keeping them during the removal process - should it get that far - would have to be addressed separately.