Blackwell Boat Launch Draws Closer Boating Facility At Island Only Lacks State Grant

Quiet now under a crust of snow, Blackwell Island could become a summer boater’s paradise within two years.

A boat launch for the island at the northern tip of Lake Coeur d’Alene is finally nearing reality. If a state grant falls into place, a four-lane launch will open at Blackwell in summer 2002.

A new launch on Lake Coeur d’Alene is essential to relieve congestion on the lake’s crowded north side, especially at the Third Street Dock, one of the busiest in the state.

Federal officials struggled for years to get here.

“Oh, man,” said Terry Kincaid, the federal Bureau of Land Management’s recreation planner heading the launch project. “We acquired the property officially in 1994. We worked on it before that.”

The federal government paid $1.25 million for the 32-acre launch site, tucked into a sheltered spot on a canal where the lake becomes the Spokane River.

Idaho’s congressional delegation kick-started the launch.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig secured a $500,000 appropriation in the U.S. Department of the Interior budget. U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage got the appropriation started in the House of Representatives.

The launch still needs one more chunk of funding: a $300,000 grant from the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, which is up for approval in May.

If the grant and a raft of permits come through, work on the launch will start this summer but finish next summer after in-water work next winter.

Eventually, the $2.2 million project will include restrooms with flush toilets, a picnic area, parking for 164 vehicles - 130 with trailers - and a boardwalk trail with wildlife viewing decks.

Concerns about wildlife and the island’s country feel fueled some public opposition to the launch.

Appeals filed - and dismissed - in the mid-1990’s challenged the project for destroying the rural nature of the island. Some locals say a prime picnicking and dog-walking site close to town will get snapped up.

“We’re having more and more houses built on the shoreline … people are moving into elk winter range,” said Susan Weller, conservation chairwoman for Audubon’s Coeur d’Alene chapter, one of the appellants in 1995. “A lot of areas are disappearing, and not just for wildlife.

“There are going to be fewer areas that people can go to get an outdoorsy experience.”

Annual bird counts reveal no rare finds at the island, which is formed by a canal that cuts through a bend in the Spokane River as it flows out of Lake Coeur d’Alene. Among those found are robins, warblers, cedar waxwings, calliope hummingbirds and black-capped chickadees. Mergansers nest and rear chicks there.

But Weller, who did her own bird count at the island this year for a before-and-after launch study, says habitat for relatively common birds and wildlife such as deer are becoming increasingly important.

“It’s good for boaters, but not necessarily anybody else,” Weller said.

As Coeur d’Alene city officials toyed with the publicly unpopular idea of closing the Third Street dock earlier this year, Blackwell surfaced as an alternative public site. That idea was quashed because Blackwell is too shallow to serve as a year-round launch.

Any plans to close Third Street are apparently dead in the water because of scarce alternatives.

“For lack of another deep water launch area, I think that’s going to be there for a long, long time,” said Denny Hague, chairman of a nineperson committee that’s prioritizing downtown revitalization projects.

Blackwell will serve boaters only between Memorial Day and Labor Day because the launch is shallow - only 7 feet deep at the lake’s summer level held behind Post Falls Dam. And the launch can’t accommodate boats longer than 26 feet, though that shouldn’t be a problem for most recreational boaters.

“It’s not going to be suitable for large cabin cruisers, tour boats, sailboats with fixed keels, things that need cranes to launch,” Kincaid said.

People who wait for a chance to trailer boats out of busy Third Street on a summer weekend should celebrate, Hague said.

“That would make a nice park down there, wouldn’t it?”