Decision Flows Toward Priest Lake Owners They Successfully Protested Plan To Change Water Level

It was a case of the lake people vs. the river people, says state water planner Ruth Schellbacher.

The lake people won.

Priest Lake property owners, worried about access to their boat docks and erosion of their beaches, successfully protested a plan to raise the summer lake level 2.5 inches at times, and lower it 2.5 inches at others.

The change would have allowed more water to be stored in the lake, then released in late summer. That would make life easier for fish, rafters and canoeists who use Priest River, where water is a scarce commodity in late summer.

The Idaho Water Resources Board planned to get legislative approval for the change, but dropped the idea this month.

“It got so controversial, we just decided to bag it,” chairman Clarence Parr said Tuesday.

The lake-level change was to be part of a state water plan for protecting the Priest River Basin.

Sixty people showed up at a September hearing at the lake. Eighteen wrote letters. Most were opposed to any change in the operation of Outlet Dam, which since 1951 has cut late-summer flows in the Priest River by half.

Two hundred people from the town of Priest River signed a petition in favor of the change. They want improved fishing and a longer floating season in their stream.

Representatives of two conservation groups, Trout Unlimited and Idaho Rivers United, also endorsed the idea. So did board member Jerry Rigby, who on Nov. 9 abstained from voting on the entire basin plan because of the lake-level issue.

“He felt that little bit of change would not hurt the people on the lake … and would accommodate the concerns of people on the river,” said Parr.

Lake property owners also influenced another big decision relating to Priest River. It is one that, ironically, would make no difference at all in the lake level.

A hearing officer recommended against a request by the water resources board that a minimum amount of water be kept in the river.

Minimum streamflow requests are “insurance policies” of sorts. They ensure that future water diversions, such as those for irrigation, won’t be approved if they would harm fish habitat or other valuable use of the river.

Only the Idaho Department of Fish and Game spoke up in support of the streamflow request at an October hearing.

That’s one reason the hearing officer recommended that the request be denied.

Fish and Game, hoping to protect trout, is asking for another chance to make its case.

“Most of the public testimony was based on the mistaken idea that the instream flow application would have required water to be released from Priest Lake during the summer,” department official Cal Groen wrote to Karl Dreher, director of the water resources department.

Dreher makes the final decision on streamflow requests, though they must be approved by the Legislature.

Denials are rare.

“I was absolutely floored that this one was denied” by the hearing officer, said Marti Bridges of Idaho Rivers United.

She noted that the Priest River streamflow request was one of 16 sought by a governor’s task force.

Its goal was to protect Idaho rivers which could be drained by out-of-state interests.

Bridges sent a letter to the water resources department before the October hearing, supporting the streamflow request.

She protested the hearing officer’s recommendation and would welcome another chance to speak.

So would Trout Unlimited and the state Parks and Recreation Department.

Representatives of both said they didn’t know about the earlier hearing.

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