Don’t Let Budget Dry Up, Clean Lakes Council Urges Money, Time Is Wasted If Lake Protection Plans Sit On Shelf

Clean Lakes Coordinating Council officials on Thursday pleaded with legislative budget writers for money to continue cleaning up North Idaho lakes.

Although no funding decisions were made, council members were encouraged at how they were received.

“I respect your group a lot,” state Rep. Don Pischner, R-Coeur d’Alene, told council vice-chairman Susan MacLeod, as he shook her hand after the meeting. “I know you do a lot of hard work.”

MacLeod and council director Lisa Prochnow met with Pischner and other members of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, then presented their pitch for $50,000 in state funds to the full committee on Thursday.

“Most of them that I spoke with were already familiar with our program, and they seemed real supportive,” Prochnow said.

Thursday’s presentation was delayed by a long tax session that came before it on the committee’s agenda. It ran a few minutes into the Senate’s scheduled session, leaving little time for questions.

Still, two North Idaho lawmakers who don’t serve on the budget committee, Sen. Shawn Keough and Rep. John Campbell, both Sandpoint Republicans, sat in on the presentation.

MacLeod told the budget committee that the council has developed eight lake protection plans, but only two - for Priest and Pend Oreille lakes - have been funded.

“We do not want these plans sitting on some shelf collecting dust,” Mac- Leod said.

If that happens, she said, all the money and hours invested in the plans could be wasted.

The council was formed under the Clean Lakes Act that passed the Legislature in 1989, pushed by longtime Sen. Mary Lou Reed, D-Coeur d’Alene.

It submits an annual report to Gov. Phil Batt on the state of North Idaho lakes and watersheds. The council also has participated in educational projects to encourage people to protect water quality, and receives grant funding for some of its projects.

Prochnow and MacLeod asked for $50,000 in state funding in the coming year - the same amount budgeted each year in recent years. But this year, half the council’s funding was lost due to cutbacks at the state Division of Environmental Quality, which is shifting all its resources into monitoring streams to comply with a judge’s order.

MacLeod said the council’s work will complement that monitoring effort.

Prochnow said the $50,000 would allow the council to continue its work and attract additional grant funding.

North Idaho’s economy is intimately tied to its water quality, MacLeod told the committee.

“We have close to 46 percent of the state’s total recreation visitors. People come to the Panhandle because of our water. They live on lakes or streams.”

North Idaho’s lakes, she said, are “state-owned resources enjoyed by many.”

“Healthy waters contribute to our economic health.”

, DataTimes