Corps To Lower Lake Pend Oreille State Had Asked To Keep Winter Level Higher For 4Th Year As Part Of Kokanee Study Plan

Sat., Oct. 9, 1999

By John Craig johnc@spokesman.com

The Army Corps of Engineers Friday rejected Idaho officials’ request to extend a fish experiment and keep the level of Lake Pend Oreille 4 feet higher than usual again this winter.

Brig. Gen. Carl Strock, the corps’ regional commander in Portland, ordered the lake to be drained to its traditional elevation of 2,051 feet by Nov. 15. The decision effectively scuttled an Idaho Fish and Game experiment to see whether a higher water level would restore the lake’s kokanee population.

The level has been kept 4 feet higher for the past three winters to determine whether additional spawning gravel would boost kokanee reproduction. The five-year experiment called for three years of higher water and two years at the regular level, but researchers said they needed another year of high water because 1997 flooding spoiled their data by flushing fish out of the lake.

The experiment was opposed by the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District and other downstream utilities that lost millions of dollars worth of power production during the winter demand peak.

An unexpected result of the experiment was additional spring flooding of farms in the Cusick area. When the swollen lake spilled into the Pend Oreille River in the spring, the higher-than-usual flows collided with runoff from the Calispell River.

Farmer Jim Carney said he and his neighbors wouldn’t object to higher winter lake levels if the flooding problem were resolved, but Idaho officials “have taken the attitude that we don’t count.” So Carney was pleased by the corps decision.

But Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne denounced the action and called for the corps to hold a public hearing in Sandpoint before the lower lake level is reached.

“They owe the people of Sandpoint an explanation,” Kempthorne said. “I just plainly disagree with their decision not to let us keep the lake levels up so we can collect the additional data.”

Corps spokeswoman Patricia Graesser said her agency chose to stick with the original recommendation of the Northwest Power Planning Council for three years of higher water. She noted that a recommendation to add a year of higher water failed last month in a tie vote of the council.

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