Kokanee Experiment Threatened Kalispel Tribe’s Objections Could Scuttle Pend Oreille Plan

Objections raised by the Kalispel Indians could alter or even scuttle an experiment to save Lake Pend Oreille’s most popular sport fish.

The tribe’s concern came as a surprise to Sandpoint area residents who are worried about losing their kokanee.

Hobart Jenkins learned about it when he scanned a list of fish projects being considered by the Northwest Power Planning Council.

Jenkins expected to find details of an experiment to keep the lake’s winter level higher to provide more shoreline spawning for the kokanee.

What he found instead was a call for more study of the problem.

“They 100 percent changed the content. … It was nothing but a tactic to ensure that there would be no action at Lake Pend Oreille at all,” said Jenkins, who is among anglers who had fought two years for the study. “I wanted to know: What is the agenda? What is the motive behind this?”

The Kalispels, a small tribe near Usk, Wash., suggested the experiment be dropped.

The tribe isn’t alone in questioning the science behind the lake-level change and its high cost. Last year, analysts estimated that up to $10 million a year in hydropower sales would be lost because less water would be available during the winter to spin turbines at downstream dams.

But the tribe has some unique concerns about the kokanee experiment:

It fears that releasing more water from Lake Pend Oreille in the spring might increase shoreline erosion and disrupt bass spawning downstream in the Pend Oreille River. That sport fish is the tribe’s highest priority.

It wants some role in the management of Lake Pend Oreille, which is part of the tribe’s historic fishing and hunting grounds. The Kalispels say the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has neglected their interests.

“To give them the benefit of the doubt, Idaho didn’t realize the Kalispels had that much of an interest in the area,” said tribal biologist Bill Towey. “The natural resource department here has only been in operation for three years.”

Ned Horner, regional fisheries manager for Idaho Fish and Game, said he knew of the tribe’s concerns about the project’s cost. The impact on bass and shoreline erosion deserves attention, he said.

But the tribal rights issue was new to Horner.

Horner and Towey met last week after Jenkins appeared at a power council meeting in Post Falls and, in his words, “raised hell” about the notion of dropping the lake-level experiment.

Council members responded by asking the state and tribe to hammer out a compromise by June 15.

Towey and Horner, who will meet again Friday, both said a lake-level change of 2 or 3 feet might be enough to help the fish. And because there are big changes in the way hydropower is being sold, lost revenue from power sales might not be as high as earlier estimates indicated, Horner said.

There’s an urgent need to keep the water higher this winter because there’s a big group of spawning-sized kokanee in the lake, Horner said. That won’t be the case in 1996.

A final decision on the experiment is due by late summer, when the eight power council members decide which fish projects will get money from the Bonneville Power Administration.