Land Board approves North Idaho land swap with Avista Corp.

Idaho’s state Land Board approved a land swap with Avista Corp. today that’ll give the utility land at Trestle Creek near Hope, which it’ll use for a bull trout restoration project, in exchange for some easier-to-log rolling timberland a few miles away that the state endowment would rather have. Avista wants the Trestle Creek land as part of its ongoing mitigation efforts for relicensing the Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids dams, on which it’s spending $5 million a year for 45 years; you can read my full story here at spokesman.com.