Lake Pretty - What’s Left Behind Isn’t Fernan Is Too Stinking Popular, Regulars Say

Fernan Lake’s shores were bustling Wednesday - children fished from the beach, seniors casted from lawn chairs on the dock, a church youth group was there for a summer camp retreat.

Near the docks, it seemed idyllic. But in more secluded places, its ever-growing popularity is turning Fernan Lake’s shore into an illegal public dump. This year, the place is brimming with souring beer cans, rotting leftovers - even human waste.

“I’ve definitely noticed the trash along the shore,” said Art Dollard, sheriff’s marine deputy. He looks for the litterers, but finding people in the act is tough. “It happens a lot when we’re not around.”

A trail at the west end of the lake is flanked on all sides by clumps of trash. There are Band-Aids, foam takeout containers, toilet paper, cigarette butts, a scouring pad, potato chip bags and ant-eaten marshmallows. Plastic baggies blow in the wind; aluminum cans bob on the water.

Dollard said the lake needs more places to legally dump garbage - on the east end, garbage cans overflow with bottles and cans, spilling onto the ground in an unsightly mess. Some areas even reek of refuse.

“It’s so stuffed and overflowing that it’s blowing all around,” said Hilda Huber, who spent the afternoon fishing at Fernan. “There was quite a bit at the edge of the lake. Why do people do that?”

Kent Chapin fished near a gut-churning trash can that was spilling over next to an outhouse. “We’ve been here five or six times in the last month, and it’s always been like that or worse,” Chapin said.

Some of the trash is natural debris left over from high spring water levels. Most of it, though, is man-made junk.

Dollard said many of the culprits are the people who fish there in weekend droves; he said he finds leftover fishing gear all the time.

On Wednesday, fishing line was strewn in tangles along a trail. Matted line and bobbers clung to power lines above a dock, the signature of casters who didn’t know their own strength.

Rosalea Moore, who has lived on the lake since 1965, said neighbors complain about the garbage.

“We lost an osprey two years ago, that had a nest in the tree. The poor thing, the mother got up in the tree and died,” Moore said.

It had eaten discarded fishing line.

But by the looks of some of the trash, those who fish aren’t the sole offenders.

All of those beer containers hint at nighttime parties.

Tom Knoll, owner of Tom’s Sportco, said the real outdoor enthusiasts don’t want to see the lake trashed any more than neighbors do.

“Sportsmen are pretty good about taking care of stuff,” Knoll said. Earlier this year, the North Idaho Flycasters picked up several hundred pounds of garbage from around Fernan.

“That resource is important to them,” Knoll said.

He hears that more and more people are using Fernan, though.

Kootenai County is growing. And timber damage from November’s ice storm has made some backwoods spots unreachable.

“We can’t get to the back country, so people are confined.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo