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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Developer damages key spawning beds

Illegal construction in Lake Pend Oreille near Bayview, Idaho, effectively “nuked” one of the last healthy spawning beds for the lake’s struggling kokanee salmon population, said Chip Corsi, regional director of the Idaho Fish and Game Department.

Despite not having the necessary state permit, developer Bob Holland had steel beams pounded directly through the shallow spawning beds on April 17 as part of his large-scale marina expansion plan for the Bayview waterfront, Corsi said.

A barge carrying the pile driver also bulldozed large swaths of the gravel beds used by the fish to reproduce, and a tugboat pushing the barge is believed to have damaged other spawning areas and living kokanee fry with its propeller wash. Biologists who surveyed the scene said the construction took place at a critical time for the eggs – they had hatched and the tiny kokanee were living on the sheltered beds.

The site of the construction, Scenic Bay, has only a small fraction of the huge North Idaho lake’s shoreline, but it’s where 98 percent of the remaining wild kokanee spawning took place in the lake last fall, according to surveys from Fish and Game. Some spawning also takes place in creeks.

The Idaho Department of Lands issued a stop-work order the day after the eight steel pilings were pounded into the lake, but scores of the young kokanee had already been killed – and a major blow had been dealt to ongoing state and volunteer efforts to nurse the kokanee population back to health, Corsi said.

“This was a great spawning bed. From my view, what this guy did is pretty unconscionable,” Corsi said. “It’s a slap in the face to the folks who are working their tails off on this.”

The kokanee fishery has been closed on Lake Pend Oreille since 2000 and an emergency salvage effort has been launched in recent years to help the fish, including changing how dams are operated and encouraging anglers to kill exotic predatory fish, such as lake trout.

Holland did not return a call seeking comment. His company, Waterford Park Homes, has been in the process of buying and developing much of the commercial property in the small, waterfront town of Bayview.

Last year, the state also ordered Holland to stop work on a retaining wall at a nearby marina because he did not have a permit, said Jim Brady, with the Idaho Department of Lands.

Holland had applied for a permit for the current project to expand a boardwalk as part of a major marina development plan, but the public comment period for the permit did not end until April 20, Brady said. The comment periods are meant to give citizens and other government agencies a chance to review the proposed work.

“They were fully aware of that but went ahead and started the work,” Brady said.

Residents were outraged when they discovered the pilings being driven into a known kokanee spawning bed without the permit, said Skip Wilcox, a retiree who sits on the Bayview Chamber of Commerce’s development analysis committee.

“Since he’s been here, he’s more often than not done what he wants,” Wilcox said of Holland. “That’s what’s frustrating to people here. Development’s going to happen. I understand that. But I would like any developer, especially this one, to comply with the rules and laws and not try to find ways to beat it.”

Wilcox said low fines appear to make it easier for developers to violate the laws than to wait for approval. The maximum penalty from the Idaho Department of Lands would be $2,500.

Holland did have a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct the work, but Brad Daly, chief of the agency’s regional regulatory division, said it appears the agency made a mistake in not restricting the work to late summer, when kokanee are not spawning and fry are not in the spawning beds.

“It appears there are some impacts that have occurred which were not anticipated by us. We are looking into this,” Daly said.

Apart from violating the state permit, Holland could face penalties for killing kokanee, which are owned by the citizens of Idaho and managed by the Fish and Game Department, Corsi said. Agency officials will meet next week to discuss the situation.

Fish and Game scientists surveyed the site shortly after the construction and found scores of crushed fry and smashed eggs.

“There are dead kokanee to show for it,” Corsi said. “Those are wild, spawning fish we can’t replace.”

The Fish and Game Department has opposed plans by Holland to conduct more work in the waters near Bayview because of the precarious situation faced by kokanee.

The marina expansion project “will be extremely detrimental to the wild kokanee population,” agency officials wrote in a recent letter to the Army Corps of Engineers. The letter also noted, “We are concerned with the continued pattern of disregard … by Mr. Holland for the spawning beds in Scenic Bay.”

Scenic Bay is the lake’s “one stronghold” remaining for shoreline kokanee spawning grounds, Corsi said. The area is believed to be good because it’s where water from the lake flows through the gravel and into the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.

Kokanee spawning beds, known as redds, constructed on these shallow gravels are kept free from smothering silts and are provided a rich supply of oxygen and nutrients, Corsi said. “That may be why this is the last place on the lake we’re still hanging on to these shoreline spawners.”

The Lake Pend Oreille sport fishery is worth $17 million to the local economy, according to Fish and Game data.

Stuart Blockoff, president of the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club, is infuriated. He said the bay needs to be protected and that tougher fines need to be imposed by the state Legislature.

“It’s so much cheaper just to go ahead and pay the fines. That’s so damn frustrating for the rest of us,” Blockoff said, huffing with anger. “It’s right on the precipice now; it could go either way with just a few things happening. This is one of those things.”