All The Signs Point To Controversy On Lake

For 50 years, tiny Horseshoe Lake has been a popular place for low-key fishing.

“I send a lot of people up there when they’re looking for a place to fish opening day,” said Larry Bryant, owner of Water Hole Sports in Spokane. “It’s shallow, there isn’t a wind problem, there aren’t waterskiers. It’s a good place to take kids to catch a few fish.”

A good place, that is, until this summer.

“No Trespassing” signs now ring the lake west of Spokane. A project to improve the Jeep trail leading to the lake has blocked access - at least temporarily - to a rough boat launch that’s on private land but has always been used by the public.

Harry Iesberts, a California man who owns 190 acres nearly surrounding the lake, plans to develop 21 lots that now are home only to deer, coyotes and a host of birds. He says he wants to protect the ducks from hunters by developing the property.

The work has stopped most fishing and camping, but not the partying and illegal dumping at the remote lake.

Jerry Corey, owner of J.P. Family Logging and Construction, which is doing the work, said he’s hauled away seven or eight tons of junk cars and other trash, some of it dumped in the lake itself. He found a pile of dead ducks, apparently left by poachers this spring.

Vandals did $20,000 damage to Corey’s log skidder and took about $40,000 worth of his tools.

“As it stands right now, I’m out about $130,000 in damages, down time and (stolen) equipment,” Corey said.

Iesberts is widening the road and putting gravel on it so Spokane County will take it over. When county commissioners made that agreement last year, they asked Iesberts to permanently grant public access to the lake, “provided private property rights are not infringed upon.”

David Schmitz, a Spokane Realtor who represents Iesberts, said fishing will be allowed again as soon as the road work is done. The deed for lot 13, which includes the steep, dirt boat launch, will stipulate that the public always has access, he said.

“We want that access anyway, it will benefit the homeowners” whose lots don’t abut the lake, he said.

Besides, Schmitz noted, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife would stop putting rainbow trout in the 68-acre lake if the people whose fishing licenses pay for those fish couldn’t reach the water.

The trout “are part of the value” of the lots, he said.

Corey suspects teenagers damaged his equipment. But there are plenty of people upset about Iesberts’ project.

Farmers worry their new neighbors won’t like the dust and smell that are part of farming.

Wildlife Department spokeswoman Madonna Luers said several fishermen called her Spokane office angry over losing lake access. The department started putting trout in the lake in 1946, and this year stocked it with nearly 20,000 of various sizes, she said.

Clarence Rattray, whose great-grandfather homestead at Horseshoe Lake in 1880, thinks Corey cut too many trees to widen the road. The county’s share of the profits from the logging on its right-of-way was $275.

Another neighbor, Glenn Oehlschlaeger worries the newcomers will want the road paved, and he’ll be asked to help pay for the work.

“That’s a possibility,” said Schmitz.

Iesberts’ land is divided into lots that range in size from seven to 11.5 acres. The 12 waterfront lots will sell for $8,000 to $15,000 an acre, and the rest should fetch at least $3,000 an acre, Schmitz said.

In a telephone interview from his home in Fallbrook, Calif., Iesberts said he bought the property as an investment in 1981. He plans to put his own home on the peninsula separating one arm of the horseshoe from the other.

Iesberts said his project will improve the area around Horseshoe Lake by stopping parties and hunting.

“We want to preserve the ducks,” he said. “Once it’s developed, people won’t be able to hunt there.

“I would bring in some black swans and white swans and stock more fish.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo Map of area.