Tribe wants help saving trout

For the first time in hundreds, if not thousands of years, children of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe no longer know the excitement of fishing a heavy spring spawning run of westslope cutthroat trout.Even into the early 1980s, thousands of fat cutthroats swam up the lake’s many feeder creeks each year to spawn. But real estate development, the Post Falls dam and even a massive fuel spill have all taken a toll on the native fish. Tribal members are terrified the species that once sustained them could be on the brink of vanishing.

“These streams had tens of thousands. Now we’re excited when we see 300,” said Robert Matt, the tribe’s lake manager, who still has vivid memories of fishing the creeks that flow into the southern end of the lake. “Those trout were fabulous – a fly fisherman’s dream.”

The next few months could be critical for reversing the trend as Avista Utilities revises its long-term dam management plan for the Spokane River system, which includes Lake Coeur d’Alene. The utility’s federal license to operate the dams expires in 2007, but Avista has only until July to complete its proposed management plan for the river system.

The new license will last for the next 30 to 50 years and will likely include provisions to protect the fish. Relicensing talks have been under way for the better part of four years, but recent months have seen an increasingly contentious tug of war between environmental and economic interests.

Although deep disputes remain over how the utility should run the dams, a recent proposal developed by a committee of local government agencies and citizens calls for Avista to spend $175,000 annually over the course of the dam license to help native trout. The Coeur d’Alene Tribe, which has significant tracts of land flooded during parts of the year because of the Post Falls dam, is also considering asking Avista to help fund a trout hatchery, Matt said.

Federal law gives the tribe considerable weight in the relicensing process.

“Our hope is to be able to recover the fish without significant changes with how they run the dam,” Matt said. “But in the presence of Post Falls dam, it’s going to take some extra effort to keep these fish around.”

Not only does the Post Falls dam generate electricity, it also helps with flood control and prevents Lake Coeur d’Alene from draining over the course of the summer. The higher lake levels are a boon to tourism and have allowed homeowners in shallower stretches of the lake and the upper Spokane River access to their docks. But the trout have suffered because of changes in the lake brought about in part by the higher water, Matt said.

Avista acknowledges that the dam has played a role in the decline of the trout population, but there is scientific debate about the exact impact.

The tribe is scrambling to conduct research on the trout before it’s too late, Matt said. Part of the work involves careful monitoring of spring spawning runs in Benewah and Lake creeks.

On a recent morning, tribal biologist Dale Chess and fisheries technician Dan Jolibois studied several adult cutthroats trapped in a specially designed weir placed in Lake Creek. The fish had traveled about five miles upstream from Windy Bay when they were diverted into the wire corral. After measurements and a few scales were taken, the fish were returned to the stream to complete their journey to gravel spawning beds.

Another trap captured adolescent cutthroats – most no bigger than a silvery cigar – on their way downstream to the lake. Transmitters slightly larger than a grain of rice, each with a unique code, are injected into the fish. The technology will allow the tribe to study how many of the fish eventually return to the creek to spawn.

But many of the trout never make it back. They are being eaten by northern pike, which have thrived since their introduction to the lake in the 1970s, Chess said. The unusually high summer lake levels have created prime pike habitat in weedy, warm shallow bays. Adult trout heading upstream and lake-bound juveniles now pass through gantlets of hungry pike, Chess said.

The spawning streams have also come under attack, said Angelo Vitale, the tribe’s restoration manager. Forests and farms are being turned into high-end homes. Springs and seeps are now diverted into fancy ponds, not muddy wetlands or small creeks.

“With the development pressure, it just becomes harder and harder to preserve the kinds of habitat that are conducive to producing fish,” Vitale said.

The tribe has been working for nearly 20 years to restore streams in the area, Vitale said. Small increases in the number of juvenile fish are being noticed. The tribe now hopes to find a way to make the lake more hospitable to the fish. But vast areas of uncertainty exist, especially regarding the complicated new food web of the lake, Vitale said.

The research being conducted by the tribe, including the tracking study of the juvenile fish, might not be completed for another six years, Vitale said. But tribal leaders are optimistic that lake tourism as well as the trout can be protected. Tourism is also vital to the tribe’s economic well-being, Vitale said.

The lake has the potential to become one of the top cold-water fishing spots in the Northwest, tribal officials say, and the prospect of large cutthroat trout would attract the attention and dollars of anglers nationwide.

The Idaho Fish and Game Department is also making native cutthroat protection a top priority, said Ned Horner, regional fisheries manager for the agency. Avista’s new dam license could help fund critically needed studies on the fish and habitat restoration, Horner said. But agency officials are concerned that disputes over the process could prevent dollars from flowing anytime soon. The department has been participating in dam management talks, and its scientists have helped conduct research on the impacts of the dams.

For more than two decades, Horner has had a personal interest in protecting the river-spawning cutthroat of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

In 1990, he helped with the state’s installation of trout-friendly culverts on Cedar Creek, an important spawning area that flows along Interstate 90 in the Fourth of July Pass area. The culverts have made a big difference, but there’s still the problem of traction sand and gravel used in winter on the highway. “A lot of that material is getting into the stream and it’s just small enough to plug up the gravel,” Horner said.

Back in the late 1970s, upward of 5,000 spawning trout swam up Wolf Lodge Creek. Horner still has vivid memories of a massive gas spill in 1983 that essentially sterilized the lower five miles of the creek, which was the most productive spawning area on the northern half of the lake. The leak happened after a construction worker digging for gravel in the stream broke through a pressurized underground pipeline.

“By the time they could get it shut off, 27,000 gallons of unleaded gas spilled into the creek. It hit that cutthroat population very hard,” said Horner, who waded through the mess to survey the damage. “There were dead fish, ducks and beavers. Fortunately nobody lit a match, otherwise I’d been history.”