Wwp Ready For Change At North Idaho Dams Helping Native Fish To Be Focus Of Relicensing Clark Fork Dams

Protection of the bull trout, which is a tail fin away from being listed as an endangered species, may bring big changes to Washington Water Power’s two most important dams.

Fish ladders may be built at Cabinet Gorge, on the Clark Fork River. Water may pulse at different times of day through the turbines there, and upstream at Noxon Rapids.

Paying for any such changes could hike the price of operating streetlights in Spokane and computers in Coeur d’Alene, because WWP provides energy for most residents of Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

Whatever happens will be decided when the dams are relicensed. The five-year process leading up to relicensing has begun, and people are being invited to weigh in on any issue related to the future of the dams.

First, they need to understand the past.

Forty-five years ago, the bull trout was not a rare creature. Many anglers and wildlife agencies thought of it mainly as a predator that gobbled up the good fish.

So it seemed like no big deal that Cabinet Gorge Dam was built in 1952, dooming the biggest Lake Pend Oreille bulls by blocking the way to their Montana spawning grounds.

“Cabinet Gorge Dam was licensed and built in 22 months,” said Larry LaBolle, the WWP biologist who is managing the relicensing project. “Demand for power was high. There were no resource studies at all.”

Noxon Rapids was completed in 1959. Together, the two Clark Fork dams pump out six times the power of the company’s six dams on the Spokane River.

“They produce over half of the company’s entire electrical generating capacity,” said LaBolle. “They’re a big deal.”

Relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is what LaBolle calls a “reset mechanism,” a time for taking stock of private dams.

The 50-year Cabinet Gorge license expires in 2001, Noxon Rapids’ in 2007. WWP thought it made sense to relicense the dams simultaneously, because the two dams are only 20 miles apart; one reservoir backs up against the other.

Protection of native fish, especially bull trout, will be the biggest issue on the minds of government scientists and environmentalists concerned about relicensing, LaBolle said. He’s identified five other issues:

Improving bass fishing in the reservoirs.

Protecting the shoreline from erosion and overdevelopment.

Protecting Native American cultural sites.

Maintaining or improving water quality.

Meeting recreation needs, such as those for campsites and boat launches.

The world record bull trout, at 32 pounds, was caught in the lake in 1949. Even though the bull trout population dropped dramatically when the dams were built, the lake has been considered a bull trout stronghold, the only place in the Inland Northwest where the fish still can be legally caught and kept.

But even those fish may be in jeopardy. The Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted Thursday to end the harvest starting next year.

With both Idaho and Montana state governments trying to fend off endangered species listings for the bull trout, improvements made at the Clark Fork dams - especially Cabinet Gorge - could be a big step toward recovery of the fish in this area.

“That may mean fish ladders,” said Larry Lockard of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Building a watery ladder around Cabinet Gorge Dam could reestablish the runs of bull trout that spawned in the Bull River, which flows into the Clark Fork near Noxon.

Improving fish passage could also open up spawning areas for kokanee, the lake’s most popular sport fish. Lockard recalled an old movie that shows people snagging the land-locked salmon as they passed by the future site of the Cabinet Gorge dam. Kokanee numbers have dropped dramatically. Biologists blame the loss of spawning habitat.

To make up for fish losses caused by the dam, WWP built the world’s biggest kokanee hatchery near Cabinet Gorge in 1985. While the hatchery bolstered the lake’s kokanee population it did not prove to be what LaBolle calls “the silver bullet” that solved fish problems once and for all.

The hatchery’s role will be scrutinized during relicensing. So will the way that WWP pulses water through the turbines twice each day, when consumers are waking up and coming home, and using a lot of electricity.

That means constant changes in the depth and speed of water below the dams.

“Those big daily fluctuations play havoc with fish that evolved to grow in that river environment,” said Idaho state biologist Chip Corsi.

LaBolle used to be an Idaho state biologist, too, so he saw dam relicensing from the perspective of someone concerned about fish, not megawatts.

He thought people ought to have a bigger, earlier say in what happens. So instead of waiting four years into the five-year process to gather public opinion - which is all that’s required - WWP is asking for input from the start. The company is even paying for it.

WWP is giving Trout Unlimited $27,000 to be the lead advocate for environmental issues in the first year.

If the arrangement works out, there may be more money in coming years, said Mona Janopaul, the Trout Unlimited attorney who will follow the Clark Fork relicensing.

Such financial support for utility watchdogs is unprecedented in the world of hydropower. Katherine Ransel of the environmental group American Rivers called it “terrific” and a good way for WWP to avoid lawsuits.

“It’s in the utility’s best interest to get everything under way as early and thoroughly as possible - to know what issues are, get them out and resolve them,” said Ransel, a Seattle attorney. “If that isn’t done, you often find yourself in litigation. That’s not a good way to spend the utility’s dollar.”

WWP started the clock ticking on relicensing in September, when it filed its Initial Stage Consultation Document. It’s filled with information about the dams’ operations and history, and the river environment.

For copies of the document, call (800) 487-4489 or 482-8785 in Spokane. Public meetings are scheduled for Nov. 13 in the U.S. Forest Service bunkhouse in Noxon, and Nov. 14 at the University of Idaho field campus in Clark Fork. On both days, public comment will be taken from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m., with an open house from 4 to 6:30.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of Cabinet Gorge Dam and Noxon Rapids Dam areas