Eloika Lake May Get A Dam Community Association Wants To Fight Weeds With Water Regulation

The whine of Jet-Skis and squeals of swimmers accompany the August sun at most lakes near Spokane.

But Wednesday morning, George Butrick shared 650-acre Eloika Lake with just one other fisherman, assorted waterfowl and fish that hid in an underwater forest of weeds.

The fish were mostly safe. Between daylight and 10 a.m., Butrick caught one keeper - a bass weighing a little more than a pound.

Butrick knows the good fishing holes, like the spot where he dragged out a five-pounder two years ago. But reaching those hot spots through a thick web of Eurasian milfoil and other weeds borders on impossible. Even in the clearest water, weeds often trail from the 6-inch plastic worm on his hook.

“They ought to do something about it,” said Butrick, who has seen the weeds spread drastically below the surface in the three years he’s fished Eloika.

After a decade of studies and more than two years of serious planning, the Eloika Lake Community Association plans to do something about it.

The community group hopes to use a $400,000 loan from the state Department of Ecology to build a dam at the lake’s outlet.

The small dam would hold the water at spring levels throughout the summer, said association president Vic Soules. Without the dam, the lake drops as much as seven feet most summers, exposing much of the lake bed to sunlight that promotes plant growth.

In the winter, the association would open the dam gates, exposing shallow fringes of the lake. High and dry, the weeds will freeze and die like unprotected roses, predicts Soules.

Jim Blake, Spokane County coordinator of water quality programs, questions whether the plan will work. Eloika Lake is so shallow, he said, that a few extra feet of water won’t make much difference, especially on the tenacious milfoil biologists are fighting in many lakes and rivers.

“There may be a little effect, but it’s not going to be a great effect,” said Blake.

Soules notes that the plan is backed by more than $200,000 worth of state-funded studies.

“This is not a miracle, it won’t solve everything,” he said. “It’s only one of the approaches, one of the many steps we need to take.”

Other steps eventually may include stocking the lake with vegetarian carp or dredging silt from the lake bed.

At the very least, the dam will prevent the lake from “going up and down like a yo-yo,” said Ivan Rasmussen, owner of Jerry’s Landing resort.

“I keep pulling my docks in, pushing them out. It will be nice not to have to do that.”

Sometime this fall, association members will ask county commissioners for permission to form a lake-management district. Then the county must hold hearings to explain the plans to people who already have heard them time and again.

After that, the 325 landowners within the district will vote on whether to build the dam and tax themselves to repay the loan.

County officials already have decided the plan doesn’t warrant an expensive environmental impact statement. The dam could span the creek by fall 1998, “if we can get everybody on the ball,” Soules said.

The district includes businesses, homes, vacation property and farms, some as far as a mile from the lake, said Blake. The average landowner would pay about $100 a year until the loan is paid off in five years, Blake said. Some would pay more than $1,000 a year.

The state would pay the biggest bill - about $3,000 a year - because the Department of Fish and Wildlife operates a public boat launch, Blake said.

“The opinion of the homeowners is that most of the people who use the lake don’t live on the lake” but should contribute to its restoration, Blake said.

One of a series of lakes strung like pearls along the shady west branch of the Little Spokane River, Eloika is a lake near the end of its life, scientists and lake lovers agree. Its narrow channel of open water is just 15 feet deep. In most areas, there’s just four or five feet of water on top of that much silt.

All lakes gradually become marshes. At Eloika, that natural process was accelerated by people, including loggers who used the lake as a mill pond at the turn of the century. Silt from skid trails and debris from the logs washed into the lake.

In 1952, a farmer knocked out a natural dam, lowering the lake about 2 feet. He restored the debris under orders from a judge, but there’s debate over whether the repairs held: Soules says the lake never returned to its natural level; Blake said there’s no proof it didn’t.

The issue could become critical.

Because the dam would increase the surface area of the lake - and evaporation along with it - it is considered a consumptive use of the water, Blake said. That means the association must acquire water rights before building the structure.

With so much competition for water, such rights are difficult to get.

But water rights may not be needed if the association can show that the lake used to stand at 1,908 feet above sea level, Soules said. The dam would hold the water at 1,907 feet.

In recent dry years, the lake has gotten as low as 1,900 feet by the end of summer, Soules said. Fed by unusually high runoff, the lake level this year stands at about 1,905 feet.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of area.