BOISE - Sen. Bob Nonini on Wednesday promoted legislation that would enable the owners of 23 historic float homes on Hidden Lake to get low-interest state financing to connect their properties to the park's sewer system.

The legislation - Senate Bill 1346 - was sent to the Senate floor Wednesday on a unanimous vote of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee.

Estimates range from $1 to $2 million for a possible loan that would be obtained by float home owners from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to build the infrastructure from Hidden Lake to Heyburn State Park's $8 million sewer system.

Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, talked about the bill's background.

"Years ago, maybe about seven or eight years ago, when the state was flush with cash, they were going to develop a sewer at Heyburn State Park, which they did. We went into the recession, the state ran out of money, and they couldn't do the complete development they wanted to do, which was put a marina in, down on the lake, and hook the 23 float homes up to sewer."

SB1346 would allow maximum moorage site leases of 30 years. That would be up from the current 10-year lease limit, giving float homeowners at the Benewah County site certainty "as to a lease term of a length longer than 10 years" - a bill description stated - while potentially getting a state loan of at least $1 million.

Coeur d'Alene attorney John Magnuson said that at least one of the float homes is more than one century old, and is thought to predate the 1908 opening of Heyburn State Park.

Most of the homes have their "original cedar floats," according to Magnuson, who also said that one of the float homes on Hidden Lake has been in existence since about 1900. "It does have initials carved in it from 1908," he said. The newest float homes at Hidden Lake are vintage structures from the World War II era, Magnuson said.

Moscow resident Tim Green represented the float home owners.

"It's part of that pioneer story that these float homes are located along the St. Joe River," Green said. "These float homes represent the last float home community in the continental United States where the configuration is maintained as it was at the turn of the (20th) century. So, it's a community of float homes situated uniquely in Heyburn State Park."