Priest Lake Management Plan Has Clear Intent Group’s Draft On Water Quality Open For Comment Until Aug. 23

The affections and the pocketbooks of boaters, cabin owners and taxpayers may be tested by a plan designed to protect Priest Lake.

It’s a battle plan designed to keep the water clean despite an onslaught of development and recreation. The enemies are chemical pollution (such as oil from storage tanks) and weed-feeding nutrients (from soil erosion and other sources).

At this stage, the Priest Lake management plan is simply a proposal. People have until Aug. 23 to comment on it.

Two 10 a.m. hearings are scheduled: Saturday at Priest Lake Elementary School, and Aug. 19 at the Inn at Priest Lake in Coolin.

A dozen volunteers wrote the plan. Team leader Donald Stratton is chagrined that more people didn’t attend the public planning sessions to give their two cents’ worth.

He’s blunt about why they should speak up now.

“If you don’t care, then it’s not important,” he said. “If you do care about keeping Priest Lake clean and pure, then it’s important to contribute whatever ideas you have that we may not have thought of - and give input on the work we’ve done.”

Here are some of the major actions called for in the draft plan, as explained by Glen Rothrock of the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality.

Timber and roads: Improve monitoring of streams that feed the lake. Get a commitment from the U.S. Forest Service and Idaho Department of Lands to build fewer but better roads, and close some of the existing ones - meaning less public access to the woods.

Public and residential roads: Determine which ones are eroding badly, and ask the owners to fix them.

Wastewater treatment: Build a sewage system to replace septic tanks in the Granite-Reeder area. Insist that existing lagoons and land-application systems work properly. “That involves just about everybody that has homes around the area,” said Rothrock.

Boats: Require that all wastewater - from sinks as well as toilets - go into sealed holding tanks. Have marine deputies enforce state laws against dumping wastewater into the lake, by checking for holding tanks during routine safety inspections. Boat campers going to undeveloped sites would need to carry portable toilets.

Camping: State and federal land managers would write a joint recreation plan, focusing special attention on camping outside of developed sites. Permits eventually may be required to limit damage to campsites, trails, water.

Stormwater: Ask residents to improve landscaping to filter water before it runs into the lake. Beef up the Bonner County stormwater ordinance to reduce runoff, especially during construction projects.

“We have lots of photo documentation of massive amounts of excavation and soil being disturbed on steep slopes with absolutely no erosion control efforts,” said Rothrock.

Like plans to protect other Inland Northwest lakes, this one recommends changes in regulations as well as heavy doses of public education.

Unlike other plans, it will have the force of state law.

That’s because, in 1990, conservationist David Hunt asked the state to designate Priest Lake as an “Outstanding Resource Water” in order to protect it. That designation never has been used and made some people jittery - especially those who worried that it would lead to logging restrictions.

As an alternative, the 1991 Legislature passed a law calling for a comprehensive study of water quality, and a plan to protect the lake.

This fall, the state Health and Welfare Board will vote on the plan. It goes to the 1996 Legislature for final approval.

Hunt, who served on the volunteer planning team, calls the management plan “a giant step forward” in protecting the lake.

, DataTimes MEMO: IDAHO HEADLINE: Priest Lake proposal has clear intent

This sidebar appeared with the story: INFORMATION A summary of the management plan is available from Rothrock at the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality, 2110 Ironwood Parkway, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; phone 208-769-1422. The complete 50-page plan will also be available soon.