New Water Quality Priorities Dry Up Programs Clean Lakes Coordinating Council May Soon Run Aground

In six years it has helped write eight lake protection plans, co-produced a video on lake health and lobbied for cleaner water - but the Clean Lakes Coordinating Council may soon run aground.

The portion of the council’s funding that came from the state Division of Environmental Quality dried up this year.

A federal court order and bleak state revenue forecasts both played a part in the cutbacks.

A lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the state, charging that Idaho has not complied with the federal Clean Water Act, led a federal judge to order the state to come up with plans to clean up more than 900 polluted streams within five years.

“It rearranged the state’s prioritization process - to do that work above and beyond any other water quality work,” explained regional DEQ administrator Gwen Burr.

That means non-essential contracts, such as an annual $25,000 for the Clean Lakes Coordinating Council, won’t be funded.

Other programs, such as the state’s Agricultural Water Quality Program, are also on hold.

Under that program, soil conservation districts can apply for grants that encourage farmers to use agricultural methods that reduce erosion and runoff from their fields.

“It will be a big loss,” said Dave Brown of the Natural Resource Conservation Service. “It’s been real successful. We’ve found that things we initially cost-shared for, people are doing as a routine way of farming now.”

Lisa Prochnow, director of the Clean Lakes Coordinating Council, estimates that the council has enough carry-over money from previous years and grant money to continue its work until June.

The council, whose members are appointed by the governor, was created in 1989 to protect lakes in the Panhandle. In 1990, the Legislature appropriated $80,000 to the council, but since then it’s been funded through the DEQ and grants.

Prochnow sent the governor a budget request for $50,000 in operating money and another $160,000 to implement a half-dozen lake management plans. The request was rejected.

Now, the council has turned to the Legislature for help.

Last weekend, Prochnow and council chairman Bob Macdonald showed legislators at the Lake City Senior Center their new video and appealed for help.

“You guys are the ones who are going to have to give us some support,” Macdonald said.

The 15-minute video, co-produced by the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, describes the lake ecosystem and how agriculture, mining, logging, development and other activities can harm the lake. The video also lists a number of things people can do to protect water quality.

The council plans to distribute the video throughout the region as an educational tool.

Prochnow and council members worry that if they don’t get any funding, the lake management plans will sit on a shelf and gather dust.

“All that time and effort is wasted if you don’t fund groups and people to do something,” Prochnow said.

Whether or not the council survives financially, Burr said the lake management plans it produced will be used in the DEQ’s efforts to comply with the court order.

“The information certainly will not be wasted,” she said.

, DataTimes