Idaho lawmakers kill minimum lake level bill

BOISE - Idaho lawmakers have killed legislation to set a minimum lake level for Cocolalla Lake in North Idaho, after Bonner County commissioners came out against it earlier this week. “The Water Resource Board does not wish to move forward with this if it’s opposed by the local community,” Brian Patton of the Idaho Department of Water Resources told the Senate Resources Committee, which then voted unanimously to kill the resolution. The department had proposed the measure, which appropriated a water right to ensure the lake isn’t drained in the future, at the request of local residents; it’s been in the works since 2004. At a public hearing on the proposal in Sandpoint in 2009, all the testimony was in favor.