Army Engineers May Reduce Lake’S Water Levels

Three seasons of higher-than-normal win- tertime levels for Lake Pend Oreille will end this year if Army Corps of Engineers officials follow the advice of their staff.

Spokeswoman Patricia Graesser said the corps’ Seattle District staff recommends returning to the winter level that was maintained before a controversial fisheries experiment added 4 feet in 1996.

But intense lobbying continued as the corps’ district commander prepared to make his formal recommendation today on whether to extend the experiment.

Idaho leaders, including Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, hope another year of higher water will prove that is the way to restore Lake Pend Oreille’s multimillion-dollar kokanee sport-fishing industry. Washington officials don’t want another year of multimillion-dollar losses in electricity production and springtime flooding. Each state’s representatives on the Northwest Power Planning Council are offering contrary interpretations of the council’s tie vote last month on whether to extend the kokanee experiment.

The combatants already are looking past Col. James “Mike” Rigsby, who hasn’t said whether he will follow his staff’s advice when he makes his recommendation to the Army Corps regional headquarters in Portland. Letters are going straight to Brig. Gen. Carl Strock, the regional commander who will make the final decision.

Meanwhile, corps staff at Albeni Falls Dam on the Pend Oreille River near Newport, Wash., is drawing down the lake at a rate designed to get it to the old 2,051-foot level by Nov. 15. Draw-downs aren’t allowed after that date because they could expose fish eggs.

Albeni Falls operations chief Joe Summers said the current draw-down will have to stop between Oct. 25 and 28 if Strock decides to go with the 2,055-foot level that Idaho Fish and Game Department researchers say they need to complete their experiment.

The theory is that a higher winter lake level will increase the kokanee population by providing more spawning gravel. Biologists say they need at least three years of higher water, but 1997’s hundred-year flood in the Pend Oreille drainage wiped out two years’ worth of data by flushing millions of kokanee eggs out of the lake.

The Pend Oreille County Public Utility District and other Washington utilities object to the loss of millions of dollars worth of hydroelectric power by holding back water in winter when power demand is high.

Farmers in the Cusick area of Pend Oreille County object to increased springtime flooding when Calispell River runoff collides with unusually high Pend Oreille River flows caused by extra water being released from Lake Pend Oreille. A corps study said the extra flooding is slight, but Jim Carney and other farmers insist any extra flooding is too much.

In another letter to the Corps, Washington’s Power Planning Council delegates, Tom Karier and F.L. Cassidy Jr., argue that the council’s split vote on extending the experiment didn’t leave the corps without guidance. They say the vote reinforces the council’s original recommendation: a five-year experiment with three years of higher water and two years at the traditional level.

But the council’s Idaho members, Mike Field and Todd Maddock, insist the tie vote indicates a “neutral position” on extending the experiment.

Corps spokeswoman Graesser said U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho also favor extending the experiment, but U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage is opposed because of the potential harm to private property.

Graesser said U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt and U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, both of Washington, also oppose the extension. But Washington’s other senator, Patty Murray, has been silent on the issue.