Bead Lake Access Ready To Open May

The way is paved for the public to launch boats again at Bead Lake in Pend Oreille County.

Contractors for the Colville National Forest have completed construction on a new boat ramp, including a steep switchbacking access road at the south end of the lake.

The launch won’t open until May, when several other requirements of the $330,000 project are fulfilled.

A toilet and powerline must be installed, a well will be tapped, soil seeded and a trail re-routed.

The final requirement is finding campground hosts to tend the launch.

“Part of our agreement with the adjacent property owners during the appeals process was to open the launch only when there was a host to supervise the area,” said Karen Soenke of the Newport Ranger District.

The deal is supposed to be reevaluated in two years.

Forest officials are taking applications for one or more volunteer hosts to camp at the lake from May to October. A campsite with power and water would be provided in return for maintaining the launch site, Soenke said.

Only the hosts will be allowed to camp at the new launch.

“This is not a major recreation site,” said Jann Bodie, Forest Service landscape architect for the project. “There are 12 parking spots and the access road is designed for rigs and trailers totalling no more than 40 feet long.

“It’s basically designed for pickup trucks pulling 14-foot boats. You won’t be able to bring a 21-foot motorhome and a 19-foot boat here.”

The low-key approach owes partly to the steep terrain on which the launch was engineered, and partly to several legal appeals filed by a handful of the property owners who have cabins on the lake’s west shore.

“There was considerable concern about water pollution and a horde of people coming to the lake,” Soenke said.

The backdrop for 720-acre Bead Lake is national forest, which comprises 85-percent of the shoreline. Yet the public has not had road access to the lake since 1992, when the former Crystal Shores Resort property was sold and the boat launch was closed.

Public outcry over lost access to the lake prompted former Congressman Tom Foley to seek federal funds for a boat access in 1994.

The public comment process that began in 1996 stirred plenty of controversy among some of the hundred or so adjacent cabin owners who had become fond of having the lake access privately controlled.

Property owners cited environmental concerns: boats would stir up lead-bearing sediment and pollute the water they drink directly from the lake, runoff would pour down the access road and into the lake, the shoreline would be eroded, fish reproduction would suffer, the noxious Eurasian milfoil water plant might be introduced.

After adjustments were made, the Pend Oreille County Commission approved the final Forest Service plan. Construction began in June.

A mountain of earth was excavated and piled in a nearby clearcut as the heavy equipment carved the access road into the steep hillside.

Bodie designed the project so there’s little disturbance to the shoreline or visual impact from the lake. No dock will be installed.

“It looks very nice and it appears they did a good job,” said Larry Wriggle, who has maintained a cabin on Bead Lake for 30 years with his wife, Nancy.

“They seem to have addressed most of the problems the property owners had, but one of our biggest worries is that more jet skis will come to the lake,” Nancy Wriggle said. The lake probably will attract water skiers and anglers who will ply the deep cold waters for burbot and kokanee.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department has not stocked fish in the lake since 1965, said Ray Duff, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department regional fisheries manager in Spokane.

“The lake is at least 170 feet deep in some areas and the water is cold,” Duff said. “It’s not considered a good trout producer and we have no plans to stock it.”

“The lake still holds kokanee and lake trout that were introduced years ago and spawn naturally,” he said. Burbot also are in the lake, but Duff has no records of how they got there.

The new launch could be the last major recreation construction project the public will enjoy on the Colville National Forest for many years, Bodie said.

“Funds for recreation have dried up,” she said. “This project never would have moved forward without public outcry and help from a powerful Congressman.”

Map: New Bead Lake boat launch

HOSTS NEEDED To volunteer as a host for the Bead Lake boat launch, call the Newport Ranger District, (509) 447-7300.