Consensus elusive over Avista dams

The waters of Lake Coeur d’Alene no longer become calm after Labor Day weekend and the annual drawdown of the lake should be delayed until the end of September, according to a proposal from Coeur d’Alene-based Hagadone Corp.

Avista Utilities currently begins lowering the lake level the week after Labor Day to create more space for spring runoff.

The lower water prevents a growing number of property owners from using their boat docks during the warm days of September, said company representative John Barlow. The proposal to delay drawdown by at least two weeks was also signed by a coalition of property owner groups, developers, state agencies and local governments. It was presented Thursday by Barlow during a meeting focused on Avista’s dam relicensing process.

But a deeper lake later in September could harm bull trout and wetlands, as well as deprive boaters below the Post Falls dam of their fall fun in the Spokane River, according to some participants at the daylong gathering. The issue won’t be resolved anytime soon – Avista has until July to submit its application to the federal government for a new 30- to 50-year license to operate dams along the Spokane River system.

The debate over the late-season lake level also illustrates an increasingly contentious tug of war over Avista’s future management of the dams.

Tribal officials, government scientists, property owners and water sports enthusiasts have been meeting regularly for more than two years to come up with recommendations for operating the dams with the notion that consensus now could help avoid lawsuits later, said Avista spokesman Hugh Imhof. But common ground is elusive and little time is left.

“We want everyone to get something they can live with, including us,” Imhof said.

Groans, sighs and finger-pointing were common during discussions Thursday. At one point, one of the 40 people seated around the table exclaimed, “This is like trying to herd cats.”

Jim Hollingsworth, a board member of the Lands Council, left the meeting early after lobbing a verbal grenade announcing his group’s plans to pull out of negotiations.

“Avista just might not be ready for this relicense. Avista maybe doesn’t deserve it,” Hollingsworth said. “We’re going to do the same mistakes we’ve done for the last 100 years. We will not support Avista getting another license.”

If consensus is not reached soon, federal regulators could step in and develop their own plan, which would likely mean even fewer people would be happy with the outcome, said Chip Corsi, regional supervisor of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Avista’s current license expires in 2007, but a draft application must be submitted by the end of winter.

“It’s time this group pulls together and figures out how you can resolve the problems,” Corsi said. “The opportunities are there, we just need to grab it.”

Although Thursday’s debates often focused on the wording of individual sentences within lengthy reports, the overarching concern is over the amount of water kept in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Property owners, powerboaters and leaders of Coeur d’Alene’s tourism economy want a longer season of high water. But that could mean less water for fish, cities and paddlers below the Post Falls dam. The high water also covers large portions of the Coeur d’Alene Reservation and the tribe has expressed concerns over the erosion of shoreline and wetlands caused by nearly a century of high water.

Avista has spent about $4 million studying the effects of dam operations, Imhof said. Current proposals call for the utility to offset some of the damages. The plans range from Avista paying $2,000 to put sand on beaches on the southern end of Lake Coeur d’Alene to spending $150,000 annually to slow shoreline destruction along the lower St. Joe River. Another proposal calls for Avista to provide a boat and spend $50,000 per year to address a burgeoning exotic milfoil infestation in the southern reaches of of the lake.

There are no estimates yet on total mitigation costs, but the expenses will eventually result in higher power bills, Imhof said.

Some of the changes could begin before the Federal Energy Regulator Commission considers the application, Imhof said. The utility has already committed to boosting its minimum water flows out of the Post Falls dam during summer months. Currently, the minimum flow is 300 cubic feet per second. Most proposals call for a doubling of the flow during nondrought years, which would help trout populations and give boaters and floaters more water.

Many downstream paddlers were hoping for at least 1,200 cubic feet per second during August and September, said Robbi Castleberry, of the Spokane Canoe and Kayak Club. With enough water, the Spokane River would be a premier whitewater playground. There’s even talk of a paddle park in downtown Spokane.

“We have such a significant resource from a boating standpoint,” she said. “Where else are you going to find a river like this? And it runs right smack through the downtown.”

But Castleberry, of Spokane, said her concerns take a back seat to fish health and water quality issues. One idea would be two weekends in August where the river levels are spiked for boaters.

“We understand that we’re going to have to give and take,” she said.