Tribe’s Lake Cda Suit Reaches High Court At Issue Is Target Of Tribe’s Suit

More than four years after the Coeur d’Alene Indians filed a lawsuit to claim Lake Coeur d’Alene, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear elements of the case.

Arguments are expected to start in October.

Even if the Supreme Court agrees with the tribe, however, the Coeur d’Alenes would not gain possession of the lake immediately. At issue now is who the tribe should sue.

Idaho claims it gained ownership of the lake - and the rest of the state’s lakes and rivers - when Idaho became a state in 1890.

But the tribe, which has existed in the area for centuries, says it never ceded the lake to the United States. The southern third of the lake lies within reservation boundaries, set in 1873.

In 1991, the tribe sued the state for ownership of the entire lake, plus sections of the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe rivers. But the 11th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits private parties from suing states in federal court.

To skirt that roadblock, an appeals court ruled that the tribe can sue members of the Idaho Land Board. The Land Board, which includes the governor and attorney general, oversees management of Idaho’s lakes and streams.

The Supreme Court will reconsider whether the tribe can, in fact, sue Land Board members.

“It gives us a second shot,” said Dean Heyl, legal communications coordinator in the Idaho attorney general’s office.

Nonetheless, the tribe hailed the Supreme Court’s decision as a positive step.

“Finally, it’s going to be heard after all these years,” said Coeur d’Alene Tribal Chairman Ernie Stensgar. “I’m looking forward to a fair and just ruling.”

Different courts have offered different views on the merits of the case. The late U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan took a dim view of the tribe’s side. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, subsequently opined that “the tribe has an arguable claim to ownership of the property at issue.”

The tribe first claimed ownership of the lake in the early 1970s during a licensing hearing for the power plant at the Post Falls dam.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decided that the tribe appeared to own the southern third of the lake. A 15-year sea of paperwork ensued, ending in the late 1980s when the commission reversed its earlier decision.

The tribe then asked the state to negotiate over ownership of the lake, and eventually filed suit.

The U.S. Justice Department also has filed suit claiming the lake on behalf of the Coeur d’Alenes. That 2-year-old suit seeks the southern third of the lake and part of the St. Joe River. It also maintains that the tribe deserves fees for all docks, boat ramps, and other structures on the southern third of the lake. The case is scheduled for trial in U.S. District Court in December 1997.

The tribe has long said it wants ownership of the lake in order to speed cleanup of contamination from a century of Silver Valley mining wastes. The metals leach downstream and settle in the lake bottom.

Stensgar said Monday that the tribe, if it eventually wins the case, wouldn’t lock up the popular recreation lake.

“No one’s going to be run off the lake. No businesses are going to be shut down,” he said. “We’d certainly listen to everyone.”

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