Lake Roosevelt Currents and Undercurrents An Administrative History of Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area

When Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO) was created in 1946, National Park Service management focused on its recreational and industrial resources. The natural resources of primary interest were the visual, aesthetic aspects of the scenery and the fishery, which at that time was very poor. The 1965 Master Plan for LARO stated summarily that "There are no ecological or wildlife problems and hunting is permitted according to state regulations." [2] At that time, natural resources management Servicewide involved direct manipulation of natural elements, including nurturing favored species and reducing problem species such as predators. Research, when it was funded, was generally seen as a tool for solving immediate management problems. Resource problems were often ignored until they reached a crisis point, and they were hardly ever viewed in an ecosystem context. [3]

Over the following decades, the trend within the Park Service has been to progressively minimize management interference and to allow natural ecosystem processes to operate freely. The Leopold Report of 1962 recommended that management of natural resources be based on scientific research and that the Park Service should maintain or recreate the biotic associations within each park to the conditions that existed when Euroamericans first visited the area. These recommendations greatly affected subsequent Park Service natural resources management policy and operations. Scientific research began to get more funding, mostly because of increased environmental awareness. The passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969 led to policy revisions. [4]

The creation of Lake Roosevelt had many effects on the natural resources of the area. Home ground, grazing land, and migratory resting areas were eliminated for some 350 species of wildlife, and fluctuating lake levels prevented vegetation from establishing along the shoreline. Resource consumption, such as grazing and hunting, has been allowed within the national recreation area (NRA) boundaries. [5]

Even so, the first interbureau agreement draft of 1941 and the Tri-Party Agreement of 1946 gave the Park Service the responsibility of conserving and protecting the scenic, scientific, and aesthetic values of the area, along with the "flowers, shrubs and trees, historic or archeological remains." LARO staff were further charged with preventing water and air pollution and protecting health, plants, fish, and wildlife. The Park Service had to coordinate its efforts with a variety of agencies, including the Washington Pollution Control Commission, Washington Department of Health, U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Indian Affairs (OIA), and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. LARO also consulted with other agencies as necessary, such as the U.S. Forest Service. LARO's status as a national park unit, subject to the purposes and mission of the Park Service, became official in 1970, when Congress defined national recreation areas as part of the National Park System. [6]

Park Service science and natural resources management received a boost from a 1979 National Parks and Conservation Association report that emphasized external threats. The 1980 State of the Parks report called for a comprehensive inventory of natural resources, monitoring programs, park plans for managing natural resources, and increased staffing and training in science and natural resources management. Resource Management Plans (RMPs) have been required since the 1960s. These plans define a strategy and program for stewardship of a park's natural and cultural resources, and they are used as budget documents with prioritized projects. LARO developed a Natural Resources Management Plan, probably its first, in 1973, with help from other federal and state agencies. RMPs were again prepared in 1982, 1988, and 1997. [8]

During the 1970s, natural resources management at LARO was performed by rangers as a collateral duty and did not receive much emphasis. Likewise, funding for natural resources management in the 1980s covered personnel costs for rangers and little else. Funding for necessary projects was obtained by dropping maintenance projects, using reprogrammed salary lapses, or drawing from the park base. Most of the responsibility for monitoring natural resources continued to rest with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), with the exception of visitor health and safety, early warning programs, and Park Service compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act for its own projects. Gordon Boyd, LARO's Chief Ranger, commented in 1986, "I strongly support the Service's efforts to increase our [natural] resource management capabilities. It can only pay long range dividends." [9]

LARO's staffing has reflected the increasing emphasis on natural resources management. Until 1990, the Visitor and Resource Protection Division took care of all natural resources management programs at LARO as a collateral duty of rangers and interpreters. Newly arrived Chief Ranger Darrell Cook realized that the park needed a more professional resource management program with staff with subject-matter expertise, and he knew funding was available for established programs. He created a natural resource specialist position by converting a vacant park ranger position, and Karen Taylor-Goodrich filled this position in 1990 as a Park Service natural resources management trainee. In 1992, she became the manager of LARO's natural and cultural resource programs, and two years later a separate Resources Management Division was established to handle these resource programs. Funding and staff shortages, however, have continued to limit the program. According to a 1994 report, the park had less than one-third the staffing it needed for the natural resource program. Servicewide, the initiative to increase resource management programs occurred simultaneously with the push for government downsizing, and this hurt the resource management thrust. The program currently depends on partial funding from outside entities to support special resource management projects. Recently, the scope of the Chief of Resource Management position was broadened to include planning functions. The park still has a Natural Resource Specialist. [10]

The Park Service's 1991 symposium in Vail, Colorado, recommended that the primary responsibility of the Park Service should be protecting park resources from internal and external threats. In line with this recommendation, LARO's objectives for natural resources management as defined in the 1997 RMP include preserving, protecting, and managing natural resources through planning, inventorying, monitoring, and implementation of plans; maintaining or restoring a semblance of indigenous flora and fauna and natural communities in natural or undeveloped zones of the NRA; mitigating or preventing resource-damaging activities inside or outside the NRA; incorporating resource protection in all development planning documents such as environmental assessments; working with other resource managers in the area; developing a Geographic Information System; and balancing visitor use with resource protection. [11]

LARO's current Natural Resources Specialist, Scott Hebner, exchanges information with his counterparts in the neighboring tribes. He acknowledges that the tribes have developed a more sophisticated approach to natural resources management than the recreation area has because they are responsible for much larger geographic areas and have more funding and staffing. They have more of a multiple-use philosophy than the Park Service in some ways, but they also state that they try to consider the impacts of their actions on seven generations into the future. [12]

To aid in scientific research, the Park Service established a number of special university-based research offices in the 1970s. These are known as Cooperative Park Studies Units. In 1992, LARO resource management staff worked with the unit at the University of Washington to complete resource databases on flora, fauna, soils, air, water, and geographic information and planned to develop long-term monitoring projects to protect the park's resources. In the late 1990s, park staff identified a number of inventories that were needed to help manage LARO's natural resources, including data on vegetation, soils, geology, and paleontological resources. Much baseline research and surveys are still needed. Special Congressional funding for level one biological inventories of vertebrates and vascular plants may become available soon as part of the Servicewide Natural Resources Initiative. This is an effort to bring all park units up to a certain standard for inventorying and monitoring natural resources. [13]

Fishery Management

The status of the Lake Roosevelt fishery has always been an important aspect of Park Service management of LARO. When the fish population changes, and sport fishing improves or declines, LARO personnel have adapted their management of the area accordingly. The Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed in the 1940s that the state Department of Fish and Wildlife would be responsible for managing the fishery of Lake Roosevelt, but the history of the fishery and of attempts to "improve" it are significant aspects of Park Service management of the area. Although current standard Park Service policies regarding fisheries management encourage the preservation or restoration of natural aquatic habitats and the natural abundance and distribution of native aquatic species, there is latitude in how this is applied, particularly in Park Service units based on artificial reservoirs like Lake Roosevelt. [14]

Two main issues involving the Lake Roosevelt fishery have affected federal and state management of the lake since the 1930s. The first is the loss of salmon in the Upper Columbia River due to the construction of Grand Coulee Dam and mitigation for this loss. The second is efforts to enhance the sport fishery in the lake. Concern over both these issues has led to a rather confusing array of studies and recommended actions over the years.

Loss of Salmon in Upper Columbia River

Four species of Pacific salmon — chinook, coho, sockeye, and chum - plus steelhead trout, are found in the Columbia River. These anadromous fish are born in freshwater, spend three to five years there as fry and juveniles, and then travel to the Pacific Ocean as smolts. There, they feed continuously until they make their way back upstream to mate and die where they were born. The salmon that once spawned above today's Grand Coulee Dam were of very high quality and were highly valued both by American Indians of the region and by commercial fishermen on the lower river. Intensive exploitation of the several species of salmon and of steelhead trout began with the establishment of the salmon canning industry in 1866. Besides salmon and steelhead trout, early fishermen also reported resident rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, and whitefish in the upper Columbia River. [15]

Because it had no fish ladders, Grand Coulee Dam completely blocked fish migration upstream of the dam after 1938. As a result, some twenty-seven thousand salmon and steelhead trout that had been part of the downstream commercial fishery could no longer spawn above the dam. Chief Joseph Dam, completed in 1955, also has no fish ladders. It is located fifty-two miles downstream of Grand Coulee Dam, and it now marks the upper limit of anadromous fish on the Columbia River. [16]

Major dams on the Columbia River and its tributaries. (Dick, "When Dans [sic] Weren't Damned," 116-117. Reproduced by permission of Environmental Review and the American Society for Environmental History.)

Reclamation officials were well aware in the early 1930s that the construction of Grand Coulee Dam would forever block anadromous fish runs to the 1,140 linear miles of upstream spawning grounds. Engineers felt that a 350-foot-high fish ladder for the dam was not economically feasible, and there was no known way for the returning downstream fingerlings to swim safely over such a high spillway. Federal and state biologists turned to hatcheries to enable continued salmon production on the Columbia River. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife proposed an elaborate plan in 1938 that was implemented by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and funded by Reclamation. Salmon heading upstream for spawning grounds above Grand Coulee Dam were caught in traps at Rock Island Dam and hauled alive in tank trucks to holding ponds at three hatcheries. There, they were artificially spawned, and the resulting fingerlings were released at the proper time in four tributaries between Grand Coulee Dam and Rock Island Dam. After five years of transporting salmon, the fish had been retrained in what Reclamation engineer Frank Banks called "Uncle Sam's Fish College" to their new spawning grounds below the dam. They subsequently returned on their own to spawn there. [17]

Problems with the relocation of the fish runs surfaced in the 1940s, including high mortality of adult salmon in the hatcheries and natural holding areas. More recently, it has been recognized that hatchery fish damage wild fish productivity through competition for limited food and habitat, transmission of disease, and loss of genetic integrity through interbreeding. They also perform poorly in the wild. Hatcheries, it is now widely believed, are a poor substitute for natural river conditions. In the 1950s and 1960s, however, hatcheries were still seen as an excellent tool for enhancing sport fisheries. Some of the problems at the hatcheries improved in the 1960s as scientists began to understand the nutritional needs of young fish better. Production of resident trout was undertaken at the three federal hatcheries mentioned above, and beginning in 1965, thousands of pounds of resident trout were stocked annually on the Colville Reservation as partial mitigation for the tribes' fish losses (these hatcheries switched back to salmon production in 1974). [19]

Efforts to Enhance the Lake Roosevelt Fishery, 1940s-1980s

During the 1940s, fishing at Lake Roosevelt was extremely poor. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife tried to establish kokanee salmon (landlocked sockeye salmon) by stocking the lake between 1942 and 1945 with almost 7.5 million kokanee and rainbow fry. This effort was a failure, although some kokanee did migrate into the lake in the late 1940s from tributary streams and from Arrow Lakes in British Columbia. Many of these were injured or killed as they went over the dam. As at other new reservoirs, the fish populations grew quickly after the reservoir was filled but then slowed down after a couple of years when nutrients were exhausted. A new reservoir generally has far fewer fish species than its predecessor river did. The most abundant species in the newly formed Lake Roosevelt were those considered "scrap fish": squawfish, carp, and suckers. [20]

Lake Roosevelt fisherman with rainbow trout, 1943. Photo courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Grand Coulee (USBR Archives 965, 7-30-43).

LARO personnel firmly believed that the state of the sport fishery would influence much of the future recreational development of the area. In May 1947, at the request of Superintendent Claude Greider, representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, OIA, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife met at Coulee Dam to initiate a game-fish management program at Lake Roosevelt. In 1947 and 1948, the state seined 150 tons of carp from the Kettle River area in an effort to control that fish species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to undertake a preliminary limnological study of Lake Roosevelt to examine existing fish populations, water conditions, and fish food supplies. LARO provided water transportation and office space to the cooperating agencies and distributed questionnaires on game fish catches to key fishermen in the area. [21]

The 1948 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study found that Lake Roosevelt had high turbidity and practically no thermal gradient, meaning that its water temperatures were fairly uniform. The authors recommended further study and a limited stocking program of a fish that would remain in the lake through the summers. Further investigations were not funded, however. Experts believed that a significant fishery would not develop because the annual drawdowns hindered access to tributaries and because the cold, deep lake was not conducive to the growth of plants and plankton necessary to establish a food chain for sport fish. The few fishermen on the lake reported catching shiners, whitefish, squawfish, carp, and suckers. Occasional catches of rainbow trout, brook trout, kokanee salmon, kamloops trout, cutthroat trout, char (dolly varden trout), and largemouth and smallmouth black bass were also reported. [22]

In 1952 and 1953, the Public Health Service conducted the next study of Lake Roosevelt's fishery. The biologist identified several factors hindering the sport fishery: low fertility, summer water temperatures above or below optimal for various species, drawdowns that hurt plant production and fish production and reproduction, and large flows during spring floods. The report recommended planting fingerling kamloops trout and possibly kokanee salmon in the lake. [23]

Perhaps as a result of this study, in 1956 a new organization known as Washington Kamloops, Inc., began stocking Lake Roosevelt with kamloops (rainbow trout) raised in hatcheries. The Kettle Falls-based group worked with the state to plant kamloops. The success of the various plantings, however, was very poor, and they ended in 1961. [25]

LARO's 1964 Master Plan noted that all resident species of fish in Lake Roosevelt had been introduced except for cutthroat trout and sturgeon. LARO staff and local fishermen continued to debate the question of whether or not Lake Roosevelt could ever be a good sport fishing lake. Until a fishery research program was undertaken, one LARO employee commented, "fishing on the lake will remain, as it is today, nothing more than something to talk and argue about." [26]

Many local business people felt they were losing tourists who might visit the area if the fishing were better. The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries planted a test run of sockeye salmon in the San Poil River. LARO personnel recommended removing "scrap fish" from Lake Roosevelt. Commercial gillnetting of carp for fertilizer in the north end of the lake was quite successful for a few years. [27]

Carl Anderson of Daisy, Washington, ice fishing on Lake Roosevelt for whitefish and trout, February 1952. Photo courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, Grand Coulee (USBR Archives 1340).

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife conducted a study of Lake Roosevelt fish populations and food sources in 1962 and 1963. The biologists concluded that cyprinids such as carp and squawfish dominated the Lake Roosevelt fishery because they used more plant material and organic debris than the salmonid species; the impoundment of the reservoir had increased suitable habitat for these scrap fish and reduced competitive species. The authors found that zooplankton abundance was only 2-5 percent that of natural lakes. They concluded that it was unlikely that any of the game fish then in the lake would develop suitable populations for a sport fishery. This study was soon contradicted by a 1966 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries study that found that there were, in fact, abundant food resources, ample spawning areas, and sufficient habitat to support an excellent game fish population and perhaps a commercial fishery in the reservoir. Turbidity was the most limiting factor, but this was expected to improve as Canadian dams and reservoirs were built upstream. LARO agreed to help with further research recommended in this report. [28]

Sport fishing on Lake Roosevelt began to improve noticeably in the early 1960s because of an increased walleye population. The original source of Lake Roosevelt's walleye is not known for sure; one plausible theory is that a Minnesota man planted them in the late 1940s. They tend to do well in the lake because they spawn at times of stable or even rising water levels. The general air of pessimism about Lake Roosevelt's fishing potential began to shift in the mid-1960s as walleye began to attract fishermen. This led to a dramatic increase in boating and fishing, particularly on the Spokane Arm. Local newspapers published articles on this fishery, and in 1969 a LARO park ranger prepared a brochure on walleye fishing. It took native Washington fishermen a while to get used to walleye, but by 1974 locals were heading for the lake after work in search of walleye. LARO personnel were concerned about the lack of a limit on walleye catches until the state imposed a limit of fifteen fish in 1974. [29]

As the fishery improved in the 1960s, the state and the tribes became more interested in the lake's potential as a sport fishery. In 1972 and 1975, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife planted some 1.8 million chinook salmon in Lake Roosevelt, but the success of these and later plantings was negligible. These plantings were reportedly done at the request of the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT), and the Park Service was not contacted. The Spokane Tribe of Indians (STI) requested and received a plant of about 300,000 walleye in the Spokane Arm above the Little Falls dam in 1976. And yet, non-game fish such as squawfish, carp, sucker, shiner, and chub continued to be well adapted to conditions in Lake Roosevelt that included drawdowns, low food availability, and siltation resulting from landslides. [30]

LARO personnel recorded increased boating activity on the lake in the 1970s in response to the improved fishing. A total of some seventy-five thousand people fished on Lake Roosevelt in 1977, more than half from boats and most in the Fort Spokane district. Over 80 percent fished for walleye. LARO built temporary fish-cleaning stations in several campgrounds to handle the increased use. [31]

By the early 1980s, walleye comprised over 90 percent of the catch on Lake Roosevelt, with rainbow trout and yellow perch about 3 percent each. The Park Service took advantage of the regional walleye enthusiasm by offering walleye fishing clinics and a small guidebook to the fishery. Local tribal members began to rely on walleye for subsistence. The walleye population in Lake Roosevelt, and thus the harvest, began to decline in the early 1980s because of overharvesting, a declining prey base of yellow perch, and other factors. Stricter harvest regulations enacted in 1985, combined with the closing of the Spokane Arm during the spawning season, stabilized the decline. A length limit for walleye was imposed in 1990 to protect spawners, encourage harvesting smaller fish, and allow anglers to keep trophy walleyes. By 1989, according to a study sponsored by the Bonneville Power Administration, the Lake Roosevelt fishery was producing an estimated $5.2 million for the regional economy. [32]

The fishery in Crescent Bay Lake was not established until the late 1980s. Untreated sewage and then treated sewage had flowed into Crescent Bay Lake from Grand Coulee and later Electric City since its formation in 1942. Reclamation retained responsibility for the water quality of Crescent Bay Lake. In 1979, it received permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to flush the lake by draining and refilling it, and the agency began a multi-year project of bringing in water from the Banks Lake Feeder Canal to shorten the seasonal algae bloom and reduce the odor problem. The town of Grand Coulee was scheduled to begin construction of a wastewater treatment plant in 1979, but funding for this necessary piece of the development puzzle was deferred by the Washington Department of Ecology. By this time, eutrophication had resulted in several inches of sludge on the bottom of the lake, and it was unusable for fishing, swimming, or boating. In 1982, LARO staff met with local city, state, and Reclamation officials about the problem. As LARO Superintendent Gary Kuiper commented, "We must all agree that today's conditions at Crescent Bay Lake are intolerable. A lake, beautiful to the eye, now fully merits the only name by which scores of people recognize it...Poop Lagoon." The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a grant to the City of Grand Coulee for a new sewage treatment plant; it was completed in 1987, finally ending discharges of waste into Crescent Bay Lake. Reclamation subsequently improved the water quality of the lake, and efforts began again to improve the fishery. Rainbow trout were planted in the lake in 1987, 1988, and 1998, and a small local recreational fishery developed. [33]

Mitigation for the Loss of the Salmon Fishery

The most important development for the Lake Roosevelt fishery in the 1970s was initiated by the CCT and the STI as a result of the 1974 Solicitor's Opinion and the Senate Appropriations Committee directing the Secretaries of the Army and of the Interior to discuss with the tribes their interest in production of power from Grand Coulee Dam. In 1976, the CCT and STI stated that the destruction of the anadromous fishery and other sport fishing as a result of the construction of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams should be compensated by power revenues or by new hatchery facilities. The tribes noted that the federal government built a number of fish hatcheries to aid the anadromous fisheries but had taken only token steps to replace the inland (upper Columbia River) fisheries destroyed by dams on the Columbia. In other words, the mitigation occurred downriver for losses that occurred behind the dam. A Spokane/Colville Task Force recommended in 1980 that a fish hatchery be built on the Colville Reservation and turned over to the tribes to manage, but Congress did not fund this. [34]

In March 1976, the CCT and the STI recommended to Congress the initiation of a four-year comprehensive study of the fish and wildlife resources of Lake Roosevelt. They proposed compiling all existing information, conducting comprehensive fishery evaluations, and determining the best management programs based on the findings. In September, a committee of representatives of a number of agencies, including the Park Service, was formed to determine the merit and scope of such a study. In the end, Reclamation funded a study conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the years 1980-1983. An Interagency Technical Committee that included the Park Service was formed to make recommendations on managing the fishery. LARO staff felt that the resulting fishery management plan would provide a basis for planning recreational developments in the NRA. [35]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study found that the fishery could be improved by keeping water levels in April and May as high as possible to maximize water retention time (the time it takes a particle of water to travel from the upstream to the downstream end of the lake) and minimize bottom sediment exposure. In addition, keeping maximum water level elevation three to four meters below full pool every other year would allow terrestrial vegetation to establish in the freeboard zone. The authors recommended waiting to establish kokanee salmon or rainbow trout populations until completion of an evaluation of the effects of reduced creel and minimum size limits on walleye and new water management practices. They cautioned that the new water budget (enacted in 1984) that required hydropower operators to provide increased flows from April 15 to June 15 to improve downstream passage of juvenile salmonids could result in fewer nutrients available in Lake Roosevelt and lower reproductive success of yellow perch, the main forage for walleye. [36]

The study also determined that kokanee were the best suited for coexisting with walleye. The recommendation to provide a dual kokanee/walleye fishery was repeated in several subsequent studies. For example, the authors of a 1986 study recommended improving the fishery by introducing kokanee in the Kettle River, improving habitat and spawning channels, building a hatchery, or rearing in net pens. They emphasized that artificial reproduction should be started soon, rather than waiting to see the effects of new harvest regulations on walleye and new water management practices. Establishing a kokanee fishery in the lake had the additional potential advantage of increasing bald eagle and osprey use of the reservoir. [37]

The Northwest Power Act of 1980 created the Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC), which was charged with developing a program to protect, mitigate, and enhance Columbia Basin fish and wildlife. This provided a funding mechanism for the desired hatcheries. In consideration of comments from the Park Service and others, the NPPC amended its mitigation goals to allow improvements to the resident fishery of areas such as Lake Roosevelt, where reestablishment of anadromous fish would be impractical as mitigation for the loss of this fishery caused by the construction of Grand Coulee Dam. [38]

The Lake Roosevelt fishery enhancement amendment proposal contained measures to develop a kokanee fishery through hatchery supplementation, improve existing rainbow trout spawning and rearing habitat, and establish a fishery monitoring program. The Park Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Upper Columbia United Tribes (four tribes) sponsored the proposal. It was designed to increase harvest opportunities and develop resident fisheries adapted to the altered ecosystems above Grand Coulee Dam. After public review, the NPPC accepted the amendment proposal in 1987. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) provided funding for two kokanee salmon hatcheries, one at Galbraith Springs managed by the STI and one at Sherman Creek managed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. [39]

The changes in the annual drawdown regime since 1968 had dramatically reduced the kokanee population by exposing their spawning areas. The water retention time was also reduced, leading to increased losses due to the drawing of young fish through the dam. In 1988 and 1989, kokanee composed only about 1 percent of the gillnet catch. Yellow perch also declined because of increased reservoir fluctuations. Since both kokanee and yellow perch are a food source for walleye, their decline limited the walleye fishery. [40]

The regular stocking of Lake Roosevelt based on the fishery enhancement amendment began in 1988, before the two hatcheries were completed in the early 1990s. These hatcheries stock both Lake Roosevelt and Banks Lake with kokanee and provide rainbow trout for the Lake Roosevelt net-pen program. They were expected to release up to six million kokanee into the lake each year when operating at full capacity. Harvest rates of kokanee and rainbow trout soared from about 3,000 fish per year in 1980-1982 to over 130,000 fish in 1992. [42]

The BPA funded a monitoring program as part of the resident fisheries enhancement project that evaluates hatchery effectiveness. The monitoring includes year-round creel surveys; assessment of kokanee, rainbow, and walleye feeding habits; and a mark-and-recapture study of release locations of hatchery-raised fish. The monitoring program is conducted by several tribes, Eastern Washington University, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. [43]

The hatchery program is generally considered successful, but many may agree with Mike Someday, head of the CCT fish and wildlife committee. He commented that although the tribes appreciate the new hatchery, "If we had our druthers, there would be no dams. We'd rather have salmon than resident trout." [44]

One aspect of the fisheries enhancement program conducted by the tribes and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is the Lake Roosevelt Rainbow Trout Habitat/Passage Improvement Project, which aims to increase the natural production of rainbow trout in tributaries to Lake Roosevelt through habitat and fish passage improvements in the tributaries. The first two phases of this project were completed in 1992 and 1995, and phase three was scheduled to end in 2000. [45]

The NPPC established the water budget as one aspect of its program to protect Columbia River fish and wildlife. The water budget is a block of water released from reservoirs that flushes anadromous fish downriver in the spring, imitating the natural spring runoff that has ended because of numerous dams. LARO, in comments made to the NPPC in 1985 and subsequent years, expressed concern that spring water budget releases from Lake Roosevelt might conflict with the spawning needs of reservoir walleye. [46]

Both the net-pen and hatchery programs suffered setbacks due to entrainment of fish over the dam. Lower water retention times lead to increased flow rates and increased entrainment, plus decreased lake productivity. Since 1984, three million acre-feet of Lake Roosevelt water has been dedicated each year to spring and early summer salmon flushes, depending on yearly water conditions. When Snake River chinook, sockeye, and coho salmon were added to the Endangered Species list in 1991-1992, an additional 3.5 million acre-feet were dedicated to the flushing project. This meant in practice that as much as ten feet of water could be drafted from Lake Roosevelt, mostly in August, to augment flows for downstream fisheries. The tribes, the Park Service, and others were concerned that the impacts of this decision on resident fish of Lake Roosevelt were not being considered. The Natural Resources Committee of the Lake Roosevelt Forum, a group of governmental and private entities and individuals interested in the management of Lake Roosevelt, agreed that thirty days was the minimum water retention time needed to maintain viable populations of zooplankton for Lake Roosevelt fish to eat. The water retention time has increased slightly since 1991, reaching an average of forty days, due to an increased awareness of its importance to reservoir ecology. The BPA funded a study in 1997 to determine methods to prevent entrainment. [47]

LARO Superintendent Gerald Tays submitted comments to the NPPC on proposed amendments to the Resident Fish and Wildlife provisions in 1995. He suggested establishing firm water retention time standards and reservoir elevations for Lake Roosevelt; installing screens at water diversions to prevent resident fish from being transported to agricultural areas; coordinating watershed planning efforts; and coordinating a study sponsored by the five signatory parties of the 1990 Multi-Party Agreement to assess the feasibility of vegetative plantings to enhance the production of several resident game fish species. Tays wrote this letter in support of larger regional concerns of various tribes in Washington and Oregon. [48]

Fisheries biologists have raised several concerns about the hatchery program on Lake Roosevelt. These included disease, impacts on other species, and the genetic impacts of hatchery-raised fish on wild stocks. Because it was found that releases of yearlings did better than releases of fry, in 1995 the hatcheries began to shift from producing fry to yearlings. Fishermen are currently allowed to keep two kokanee (either hatchery or wild). [49]

Net-Pen Program

Lake Roosevelt's net-pen trout rearing program began in 1984. Win Self, owner of Seven Bays Resort, started the program after he was advised to establish and document hatchery-raised fish survival and normal growth patterns to aid in his campaign for a fish hatchery on the lake. This was the first time a net-pen program had been established in a part of Washington where winter ice was a factor, although it had been successful in western Washington. Self raised fingerling rainbow trout, supplied by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, in the bay at Seven Bays Resort. The fingerlings were put in the pens in October and were released into the lake at catchable size in May or June. By 1986, 80 percent of the rainbow trout caught within ten miles of the resort had been reared in net pens. The idea caught on, and by 1989, a total of fifteen net pens were operating at various places around the lake, some run by LARO concessionaires, totaling about half a million trout per year. Volunteers operating the net pens formed the non-profit Lake Roosevelt Development Association. Because state and federal hatcheries did not have the ability to raise enough fish for the program, space was included in the BPA kokanee hatcheries for raising rainbow trout for the net pens. [50]

By 1988, the CCT was requiring each of its concessionaires to participate in the net-pen program. LARO's staff began to schedule interpretive programs at the Kettle Falls net-pen facility. The net-pen program resulted in a dramatic increase in the rainbow trout fishery throughout much of Lake Roosevelt. By 1996, net-pen rainbow trout accounted for roughly 40 percent of the fish in Lake Roosevelt. [51]

Volunteer efforts for operating the net pens were flagging by 1994, however, and funding for the net-pen program had become a problem. In 1995, the BPA partially funded the program as mitigation for the loss of anadromous fish species as a Resident Fish Substitution Project. The BPA paid for a coordinator, through the Lake Roosevelt Forum, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife provided fish feed. By 1999, forty-five net pens located on the lake between Keller Ferry and Kettle Falls were raising both rainbow trout and kokanee salmon for release into the lake. [52]

LARO Management of the Fishery, 1980s and 1990s

Most fisheries management activities on Lake Roosevelt are developed and administered by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the CCT, and the STI. Park Service staff provide support for native and introduced fisheries projects through monitoring, enforcement, interpretation, consultation, and logistical support for research activities. In short, the Park Service serves as an advocate for the resident fishery and for the interests of recreational fishing on Lake Roosevelt. LARO's efforts have often been limited, however, by the lack of Park Service funding for fisheries management research.

White sturgeon are native to Lake Roosevelt, and as the pressure on these fish has increased, so has LARO's interest in understanding and managing this particular fishery. Kettle Falls district personnel in 1984 began informal surveys of the sturgeon fishery, calculating the angler time required to catch one fish. Sturgeon fishing was growing on the lake because of little enforcement of sturgeon fishing regulations by the state and the thrill of landing a large fish. Local experienced fishermen concentrated on the waters north of Marcus Island. Poaching of sturgeon was a concern by the late 1980s, and LARO began advocating a reduced limit of one sturgeon per season. The LARO surveys found that in 1985-1987 it took an average of 167 hours to catch one sturgeon that was kept. Today, Lake Roosevelt sturgeon are catch-and-release only. [53]

In 1985 and subsequent years, LARO submitted requests for funding for a baseline study of Lake Roosevelt white sturgeon. In the late 1990s, the BPA funded a study on the sturgeon population of Lake Roosevelt that was conducted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the STI, and the CCT. The sturgeon were found to be concentrated primarily in the Kettle Falls and Marcus Island areas and to be composed primarily of adults. [54]

A fishery management plan for LARO itself has not been prepared. Park management and the Resource Management staff do not believe it is a high priority due to the CCT and STI's extensive fishery management program funded by BPA. The tribes' emphasis on native species, where feasible, is compatible with Park Service policy. [55]

Wildlife Management

The Park Service is not the lead wildlife-managing agency for Lake Roosevelt; the tribes and the state share this responsibility. LARO does not take an active role, outside of protection of wildlife and its associated habitat, largely because of lack of funding and management emphasis. As Karen Taylor-Goodrich, LARO's first full-time resources management staff, put it, "The state and the tribes still do not believe that we have jurisdiction, but sometimes they'll let us play with them." Over the years, the Park Service has requested assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on wildlife problems. [56]

The creation of Lake Roosevelt flooded many acres of prime wildlife habitat (riparian land that provided browse, water, and nesting sites). It also created a barrier that few large migratory animals could cross. Some of the area had been a game reserve, but the state eliminated the land north of the dam from the reserve in 1941. Although some species of wildlife such as bats, swallows, and diving ducks probably did benefit from the creation of the reservoir, the overall effects were detrimental to wildlife. The loss of 73,000 acres of wildlife habitat caused initial estimated losses of some 1,700 white-tailed deer, 1,100 beaver, 87,300 mourning dove, 400 Canada geese, and other indicator species. Some 350 species of wildlife were affected. Most of the mammals and birds that use the reservoir area do not stay within the NRA boundaries since it is such a narrow strip of land along the lake. Exotics may be introduced to NRAs, and in the Lake Roosevelt area, ringneck pheasant, Merriam turkey, and bobwhite quail were introduced by the 1960s. [57]

Park Service regulations allow hunting on NRA lands. As at other reservoirs administered under a cooperative agreement, state agency officials set seasons and bag limits and enforce hunting laws. The Park Service retains the right to close certain areas such as campgrounds to hunting in order to protect visitors or resources. As one LARO employee commented at a meeting, "we just don't like to have Park visitors have their heads blown off with a twelve gauge shotgun in front of the visitors' center." [58] Although most hunting is actually done on adjacent public lands, hunters seeking deer, upland birds, and migratory geese and ducks have traditionally used LARO's campgrounds and other facilities as a base for their hunting trips. [59]

In the 1940s and 1950s, LARO's biggest wildlife challenge was protecting trees from beavers. Beavers were falling and girding apple trees at Hawk Creek as early as 1943 and also damaging trees at Fort Spokane. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended a live trapping program, and this was instituted on the Spokane Reservation in 1947. Tree trunks at Fort Spokane were treated with a beaver repellant spray, and the animals were transplanted away from the area. This appears to have solved the problem. Some "pests" have been killed at LARO, such as marmots living underneath historic structures at Fort Spokane. Other problem species have included Columbia ground squirrels, yellow jackets, bats, river otters, badgers, and pigeons. [60]

LARO field staff began collecting wildlife observation data using the Park Service "Natural History Field Observation" card system in 1960. The first known LARO research program on wildlife of the area was a goose pasture project conducted in 1969. Its purpose was to improve the grazing areas for Great Basin Canada Geese; increasing LARO's goose population, it was believed, would improve the hunting potential for geese. This was done in cooperation with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which provided seed and fertilizer for the areas chosen by LARO staff. Adjacent landowners planted and fertilized the grain. (Ironically, geese are now considered a problem at some of LARO's swim beaches and other developed sites.) Small research projects concerning wildlife at Lake Roosevelt were conducted in the 1970s, such as a study of yellow-bellied marmot in eastern Washington and a Columbia Basin-wide study of the effects of fluctuating lake levels on plant and animal communities. [61]

The CCT and STI brought together the various wildlife-managing agencies in the mid-1970s and proposed a five-year study of the fish and wildlife resources of Lake Roosevelt, with funding coordinated through Reclamation, as mitigation for the displacement of wildlife along the river caused by Grand Coulee Dam. Congress asked a committee of representatives of various agencies, including the Park Service, to answer four specific questions and to determine the merit and scope of such a study. Reclamation developed a study plan for evaluating and implementing mitigation claims by both tribes for fish and wildlife losses they had incurred on the upper Columbia. As part of this plan, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife prepared a wildlife proposal for a three-year study. In response to the draft Reclamation report, LARO staff questioned the Park Service not being named a member of the advisory committee that would evaluate and coordinate the program because it was not considered a wildlife agency. [62]

The Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980 prescribed that measures be implemented to protect, mitigate, and enhance fish and wildlife affected by development and operation of hydropower projects on the Columbia River System. At the request of the NPPC, the parties reviewing the Grand Coulee Dam project moved into the mitigation planning phase for wildlife rather than debating in detail the extent of the losses. The resulting report on wildlife protection, mitigation, and enhancement planning was prepared by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with guidance by a number of agencies (but not the Park Service). [63]

The 1986 wildlife mitigation plan was based on the goal of protecting the same number and kinds of Habitat Units (acres of optimum quality or prime habitat for a given species) as were lost due to the creation of Lake Roosevelt. The plan provided a balance of mitigation benefits among the state and the tribes. Land or management rights to some seventy-three thousand acres needed to be acquired and then the land had to be managed to perpetuate its use by wildlife. In addition, identified bald eagle territories and communal roost sites needed to be protected or enhanced. The program would benefit shrub-steppe wildlife such as grouse, protect and enhance bald eagle habitat and encourage nesting, and protect critical big-game winter range and riparian lands. The funding was to come from the BPA. [64]

The NPPC amended the 1986 proposal in 1989 to require that wildlife mitigation goals be developed using a public and local government review process. The Park Service, as an Interested Party, reviewed draft goals prepared by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Substitutions were made for some of the original indicator species. This program would address a portion of the total identified wildlife losses for Grand Coulee Dam over the next ten years. In 1993, the BPA signed an agreement to distribute $45.5 million among the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CCT, STI, Yakima Tribe, and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation as a five-year settlement for wildlife mitigation in Washington. [65]

The Park Service was concerned that it might not have equal consideration in funding for future wildlife mitigation projects under this program. The agency unsuccessfully sought consideration as a fish and wildlife management agency entitled to special status under the Northwest Power Act. LARO staff continued to work on project proposals and implementation that would qualify for BPA funding, including enhancement of bald eagle nesting and winter habitat; wildlife habitat enhancement along the lower Kettle River; and development of a peregrine falcon breeding program. As LARO Assistant Superintendent Kelly Cash commented, "If we want an NPS proposal for wildlife mitigation — i.e., habitat improvement on NPS administered lands — then we must be prepared to assemble the proposal, & to coordinate with others & lobby for approval." [66] The only mitigation project on LARO-managed land that has received BPA funds to date is the peregrine falcon program. LARO natural resources management staff also participated in local advisory committees and in the NPPC's interagency Wildlife Working Group for several years, but this is no longer a priority for the park. LARO converted a park ranger position to a Resource Management Specialist, partly to coordinate Park Service involvement with NPPC wildlife mitigation. [67]

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 required that the Park Service identify all threatened and endangered species and their critical habitats within the boundary of each park unit. Each park then had to develop a management plan in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, prepare a recovery plan, and implement monitoring. Although for many years it was thought that no threatened or endangered species were resident at LARO, by 1998 it was known that six such protected species might occur in or near the recreation area: the endangered gray wolf, peregrine falcon, woodland caribou, and the threatened bald eagle, bull trout, and grizzly bear. LARO staff cooperated with other agencies in implementing endangered species recovery plans and also took the lead on two such projects. [68]

The first project proposal that LARO staff submitted to the NPPC was designed to establish one breeding nesting pair of peregrine falcons for the Lake Roosevelt area, using existing public lands. The project was initially suggested by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife; that agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the CCT cooperated with LARO in developing and implementing the long-term management plan. The ten-year project was funded beginning in fiscal year 1992. The Park Service contracted with the Peregrine Fund to release falcon fledglings for five years, 1993-1997, followed by several years of population monitoring to be conducted by LARO staff and other area biologists. By 1997, a breeding pair was successfully nesting on Banks Lake, so the project was considered successful. As of 2000, there are approximately eight more nests in eastern Washington than when the program began. LARO staff prepared a site bulletin, slide show, and park newspaper articles to interpret the project to the public. [69]

LARO staff also took the lead, at the request of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in developing bald eagle habitat management guidelines for the Lake Roosevelt area. The bald eagle is listed as a threatened species in Washington. The Pacific States Bald Eagle Recovery Plan included a proposal to protect key habitat and establish several nesting territories along Lake Roosevelt. Under this plan, LARO personnel monitored the nesting populations of the area through an annual survey. A series of interagency meetings on the issue in 1991 helped improve interagency exchange of information in general. A study completed in 1995 for Reclamation found that the number of eagle nests and of young fledged had increased almost every year since bald eagles were first documented nesting on Lake Roosevelt in 1987. In 1997, the CCT conducted a productivity study of nesting bald eagles and found seventeen known nesting sites, which was still below capacity. LARO, other agencies, and the tribes continued surveying the wintering eagles along the lake and monitoring active nests during the breeding season. LARO staff prepared a site bulletin that highlighted popular viewing areas for bald eagles. [70]

Starting in the late 1980s, LARO staff began to manage the Kettle River area as wildlife habitat, as suggested by the Soil Conservation Service. As conceived at that time, the plan was to try to control noxious weeds and other exotic plants and provide winter range for deer. In 1992, LARO submitted an application to the NPPC for funding for a baseline inventory of public lands along the lower Kettle River in preparation for wildlife enhancement projects. This has not yet been funded by either the Park Service or BPA. Although this area is one of Lake Roosevelt's largest wetlands, it does not meet federal criteria as a jurisdictional wetland. LARO's Chief of Resource Management at the time believed that political questions concerning whether or not the Park Service is a fish and wildlife management agency and the appropriateness of its seeking wildlife mitigation funds were the reasons for the lack of support for the proposals. [71]

Forest Management

Forest management has been a concern in the forested northern portion of the NRA since it was established. By the 1940s, forest fires, smelter fumes, logging, and clearing for farming had destroyed most of the old-growth trees along the shores of the north portion of the reservoir. These were being replaced by second-growth conifers and by willow, birch, and alder. Little funding was available, however, for pro-active forest management. Superintendent Claude Greider stated firmly that no commercial sales of forest products had been made from land within the NRA and that none were contemplated. LARO's forestry policy in the 1940s and 1950s, similar to other Park Service units, was aimed at protecting the forests against fire, insects, disease, grazing, and other threats and thus maintaining the beauty and safety of the area. LARO personnel relied on the expertise of other agency personnel, such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, for advice concerning disease and insect infestations. [72]

Spraying trees at Fort Spokane, 1963. Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO.FS).

LARO began actively managing its forests for disease and insect control in the 1960s. Although none of the problems were considered critical, concerns included bark beetles, needle casts and blights, mountain pine beetle, western pine beetle, western gall rust, chemical injury along roadsides, and dwarf mistletoe. The Forest Service conducted annual aerial surveys to inspect the infestations, sometimes accompanied by LARO personnel, and recommended standard silvicultural practices such as removing infected trees, thinning, pruning, and use of chemicals such as DDT. Thinning projects consisted of removing "decadent high-risk mature pines" throughout the NRA, particularly those within campgrounds, to prevent mountain pine beetle epidemics. [73]

In 1967, the U.S. Forest Service Regional Forester commented, "In effect, much of the land adjacent to Lake Roosevelt is suffering from an 'epidemic of tree' which in time will be cured by an epidemic of mountain pine beetle.'" He suggested that LARO develop a long-range timber management plan and offered assistance from Forest Service pathologists and entomologists. The Park Service Regional Director endorsed the proposal, which involved a contract for surveying, inventorying, mapping, and delineating management units and setting up an annual program to be completed in five to ten years. [74]

By the mid-1960s, within the Park Service as a whole, native insects and diseases began to be considered of equal value to native plants and animals. But at NRAs like LARO, they continued to be controlled more than in the large national parks. LARO personnel did not hesitate to use highly toxic pesticides in the late 1970s to eradicate bark beetles, which were damaging trees in a number of LARO's developed areas. By the 1980s, Integrated Pest Management became the norm Servicewide as the Park Service tried to reduce the amount of chemicals applied on park lands. [75]

LARO's 1980 General Management Plan specified that trees could be felled and removed to prevent insect infestations of neighboring lands, to reduce fuel buildup around high visitor-use areas, and to improve visitor safety within developed areas. Trees were also cleared occasionally to enhance vistas. The 1981 RMP acknowledged that the policy had been inconsistently applied, particularly in areas where adjacent non-federal lands were involved. It recommended a comprehensive tree management policy to replace the existing loose standards, based on current scientific forest management principles rather than personal judgment. Some conflict with adjacent landowners had arisen because the landowners wanted more trees to be removed than the Park Service felt was justified. [76]

In 1982 and 1983, U.S. Forest Service personnel surveyed LARO's developed areas and identified trees to be thinned by maintenance crews. They urged that thinning and control of soil compaction be done to increase the vigor of the remaining trees. Trees along about one hundred miles of shoreline from the north end to and including the Spokane Arm were infected primarily with mountain pine beetle or western pine beetle. The thinning program that began in the 1970s became more aggressive in four developed areas and was considered successful. LARO's 1988 RMP recommended continued thinning in developed areas, building barriers to prevent vehicles from driving close to trees, and tilling to loosen compacted soils, with formal evaluation by Forest Service technicians every three years. [77]

LARO prepared a Hazard Tree Management Plan that was approved in 1984. A hazard tree is one in a use area that may fall and cause injury or property loss. The plan used a point rating of both tree condition and target value to determine the tree's hazard potential. District rangers and district maintenance foremen were assigned to do annual inspections of the 220 acres of developed zone that needed hazard tree management, and the Natural Resources Specialist was the park's Hazard Tree Coordinator. In 1994, LARO estimated that some one thousand hazard trees within the NRA needed "mitigation." Hazard trees located adjacent to private land became a politically sensitive issue at LARO because so many threatened private structures. [78]

In the early 1990s, an outbreak of western pine beetle affected ponderosa pines throughout the region. In response, LARO staff in 1992 conducted a Forest Insect and Disease Risk Assessment Survey of the twenty-six developed campgrounds forested with ponderosa pine within the NRA. They concluded that the forests along the lake were stressed due to drought, fire suppression, overcrowding, poor forest management practices, and soil compaction and were therefore susceptible to disease and insect infestation. The park continued its tree-thinning program, and the Integrated Pest Management and hazard tree management programs complemented the effort. LARO, with funding and technical assistance from the Forest Service, is now developing priorities for treatment areas and is in the process of establishing a prescribed fire program to meet park objectives. This is part of an interagency effort to improve forest health in eastern Washington. [79]

Following the 1992 survey, LARO resource management and maintenance staff have implemented forest pest management projects each year. Annual field surveys help determine the priorities. Treatment methods now include clearly delineating individual campsites, barricades, revegetation, prescribed burns, and selective tree removals. The Forest Service's Forest Pest Management Program provided the initial funding, but this ended after 1998. [80]

Noxious Weeds and Exotic Plants

Noxious weeds were a concern at LARO as early as 1948. LARO Superintendent Claude Greider, writing to the Park Service Regional Director that year about knapweed, goatweed, and larkspur, commented, "We do not know how prevalent any of these weeds are and have no recommendations at this time." [81] He noted that chemicals could easily control Canadian thistle and mullein. By 1951, the goatweed problem in the Kettle Falls area was serious enough that the Forest Service and Soil Conservation Service launched an aggressive campaign to limit its spread. Greider requested and received one ton of Borascu to treat the weed on LARO lands. Grazing permittees also attempted to control the noxious weeds on their lands within LARO. In 1948, LARO turned some seventeen hundred acres of bottomland along the Kettle River over to the Kettle-Stevens Soil Conservation District through a long-term permit; it had become a "nursery for noxious weeds," which disturbed local raisers of livestock. [82]

By 1981, Park Service policy restricted the herbicides that LARO had been using for noxious weed control. Although some herbicides continued to be approved for use at LARO, restrictions on their use made it difficult for the NRA to comply with county ordinances. The park began a more aggressive noxious weed eradication program for fourteen species of noxious weeds using spraying, mechanical methods, and revegetation of impacted sites with native species in the 1980s. This program was subject to funding availability, which limited its effectiveness in some years. Priority locations for treatment were road accesses, developed campgrounds, and the Fort Spokane grounds. The weed control districts, adjacent property owners, and farmers in the area were all concerned that federal lands were contributing to the spread of knapweed, goatweed, jamhill mustard, dalmation toad flax, thistle, and other noxious weeds. LARO did receive funding to develop a monitoring protocol to assess the effectiveness of its noxious weed control program. [83]

A 1994 aquatic weed survey conducted by the Stevens County Noxious Weed Control Board in 1994 found Eurasian milfoil at the mouth of the Colville River. A survey of the entire reservoir for Eurasian milfoil, an invasive exotic plant, was recommended in the 1996 Lake Roosevelt Management Plan but has not yet been accomplished. LARO's 1998 GMP stresses the need for a baseline flora inventory to answer specific questions about species, abundance, status, and distribution, and to identify any endangered, threatened, or sensitive flora within the NRA in order to protect them. [84]

Water Quality

When LARO was established in 1946, sewage effluents from Spokane and Grand Coulee and industrial pollution of tributaries to Lake Roosevelt were serious concerns. The areas most affected were the entire Spokane Arm, the Colville River, Crescent Bay Lake, and Hawk Creek. Recreational development was delayed at several locations because of significant water pollution. Since then, LARO managers have continued to look beyond the boundary lines defining the NRA to address external sources of pollution. In recent decades, federal laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act have given park managers more authority to address such external threats. [85]

In 1950, LARO managers protested a particular external source of pollution that threatened the park. At that time, eleven mills that concentrated ore in the Lake Roosevelt watershed used flotation or cyanide in their process, and some discharged tailings into the lake. LARO Superintendent Claude Greider notified various agencies about pollution from the Reeves-McDonald mine, which the Park Service felt represented a serious threat to spawning and feeding grounds for Lake Roosevelt fish. This mine was located eighteen miles up the Pend Oreille River from its confluence with the Columbia. [86]

Another relatively early external threat to Lake Roosevelt was a mill proposed by Western Nuclear on the Spokane Reservation. Uranium deposits were discovered on the reservation in the 1950s, and Western Nuclear prospected thousands of acres of land there. In 1969, the company proposed building a mill. The issue of whether the company or the tribe would have to pay for the large amounts of water the mill would need became controversial, but the Park Service decided that it had no interest in that question. But LARO personnel, along with the tribes and Reclamation, did express their concern about the potential water pollution problem, including radioactive contamination. The final Environmental Impact Statement was approved in 1976, and the Sherwood mine and mill were constructed; the impact on the watershed is not known. After the Sherwood mine shut down in 1985, LARO supported the efforts of the tribes and various agencies to have proper reclamation done at this and other open-pit mines. [87]

LARO personnel began assisting in gathering baseline data on Lake Roosevelt's water quality by the mid-1970s, and they hoped to cooperate with other agencies on water quality issues. U.S. Fish and Wildlife studies in the early 1980s found high concentrations of cadmium, lead, arsenic, and zinc in the tissues of Lake Roosevelt fish. The Washington Department of Ecology performed studies in the late 1980s that indicated that metals concentrations were below limits set by the Food and Drug Administration, so no consumption advisories were issued. In 1988, Canada issued an advisory concerning walleye because of mercury concentrations found in this fish. Elevated levels of dioxins and furans were found in fish downstream of a pulp mill in British Columbia, and the Canadian government placed a consumption advisory on lake and mountain whitefish. Canadian advisories, however, technically do not apply to U.S. waters. A health advisory related to dioxin and furan was also issued in the United States that recommended that children not eat whitefish from Lake Roosevelt. For a time, LARO personnel posted large orange signs at campgrounds and boat launches warning fishermen about the dioxins and furans found in whitefish. [88]

The primary source of water pollution in Lake Roosevelt is point-source industrial pollution. For example, the main source of heavy metals in Lake Roosevelt fish is the Cominco lead-zinc smelter located in Trail, British Columbia. For many decades, this plant discharged each day several hundred tons of black, sandy slag into the Columbia River. This slag, previously thought to be inert, is now known to harm aquatic organisms. LARO personnel began meeting with Cominco managers in 1986 and had input into amending Cominco's discharge permit. By the late 1980s, Cominco had reduced the mercury concentrations being discharged, and in 1995 it eliminated the slag discharge altogether by landfilling the material. Political pressure from the United States, and stronger enforcement of provincial anti-pollution laws, led to the change. [89]

The primary source of dioxins and furans in Lake Roosevelt fish is the Celgar Pulp Mill at Castlegar, British Columbia, about thirty miles from the border. This plant began discharging untreated effluents in 1961. The mill started updating its processes and equipment in 1991, resulting in reduced usage of chlorine and significant reductions in the amount of dioxins and furans in the effluent. LARO was a member of the Celgar Pulp Mill Citizens Advisory Group. [90]

Other sources of pollutants entering Lake Roosevelt include sewage treatment plants, runoff from nearby agricultural and logging operations, heavy metal contaminants from northern Idaho's Silver Valley, shoreline erosion and slumping, construction sites, and air pollution deposition. Recreational sources include campsite sewage, unsealed pit toilets (most have been replaced with vault toilets), garbage dumped in the lake, fertilizers and pesticides used on home lawns and golf courses, and leaks of oil and gas from boats and fueling stations. Another source was livestock waste from grazing; LARO decided to phase out its remaining grazing permits in the 1990s for this and other reasons. [91]

The CCT took the lead in 1988 in investigating and monitoring Lake Roosevelt's water quality, with assistance from the Park Service through the provision of a boat and funding from Reclamation for an aquatic vascular plant study. The tribes also helped form the Lake Roosevelt Water Quality Council, composed of representatives of tribal, federal, and state agencies and user groups. One major accomplishment of the Council was obtaining funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to fund a Lake Roosevelt Water Management Plan. The Washington Water Research Center of Washington State University prepared this plan, completed in 1996. The report analyzed available information and included recommendations for improving the water quality and productivity of Lake Roosevelt, but little action has yet been taken on these recommendations. The Council also sponsored conferences, workshops, and educational programs. LARO's Superintendent Gerry Tays served as the Park Service representative on the Council's Management Committee, which was responsible for overseeing the management plan and for public education. The LARO Natural Resources Specialist served on the Technical Advisory Committee. By 1997, the Council had evolved to become a committee within the Lake Roosevelt Forum. [92]

Floating dump station on Lake Roosevelt, 1975. Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO.HQ.MENG).

The Park Service Water Resources Division (Fort Collins, Colorado) prepared a Water Resources Scoping Report for LARO in 1997. This report recommended that the park seek funding for a Water Resource Management Plan, which would help define the Park Service role in water quality, research, monitoring, and other activities in relation to the other involved federal, state, and local agencies and tribes. But without a staff position dedicated to water resources, this is unlikely to happen. Instead, LARO personnel are trying to stay informed and effect change when possible. [93]

Air Quality

Concern about air quality in the Lake Roosevelt area began to increase in the 1970s, after passage of the federal Clean Air Act. The Washington Department of Ecology is responsible for monitoring and enforcing air quality standards and regulations. Most of LARO is classified as a Class II area; the Spokane Reservation is a Class I area, which means it has more stringent standards. LARO's air quality is affected by pollution emissions both inside and outside the NRA - smelter plants and pulp and paper mills are the primary sources - and by prevailing meteorological conditions. The pollutants of concern are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and suspended particulate matter. [94]

The main area of concern for air quality is Kettle Falls, where two industrial plants are located. The Boise Cascade plywood mill periodically violated air quality standards for particulates. Although the company suggested that the ash fall from their plant was no worse that that generated by park visitors' campfires, LARO personnel reported the ash falls and in 1991 the Washington Department of Ecology required that the plant install updated pollution control equipment. This significantly reduced the emissions from the plant. [96]

The other plant in the Kettle Falls area is a forty-megawatt waste-wood-fired plant constructed by Washington Water Power in 1981. For the first few years of operation, ash emitted from the plant fell on LARO facilities. But operators reworked the emissions system and brought the plant into compliance with emission standards. [97]

In 1994, KVA Resources announced that it planned to construct a gas-fired electric generating facility east of Creston. Cooling water for the plant would come from wells just inside LARO. Park staff and Regional Office staff tracked the proposal and provided extensive written comments regarding air and water quality standards. Working directly with KVA representatives, they expressed concerns about visibility and about the potential of acid deposition within the NRA to harm resources there. This plant was not built, largely due to the company's inability to get the rights to the water needed for the proposed water-cooled facility. [98]

Current air quality concerns for the Lake Roosevelt area include emissions from Cominco and wood smoke. LARO staff would like to develop a list of air quality-related values, to identify scenic vistas, and to establish a visibility goal for LARO based on park management objectives. They hope to identify and document resources that are particularly sensitive to air pollution. [99]

Aircraft Overflights

In the 1980s, the Park Service became concerned about aircraft overflights and their impacts on national park units. The airspace above LARO is on the flight path for military training flights, which consist of approximately ten flights a month for much of the year. Park personnel expressed concern about the noise intrusion on recreation, interpretive programs, and peregrine falcons. Overflights are no longer a significant concern, however, because the source of most of the flights, a unit at Whidbey Air Naval Station in western Washington, has been dismantled. The noise from personal watercraft is of more recent concern and has not been formally evaluated to date. Existing regulations specify noise restrictions for all boats, including personal watercraft. [100]

Conclusion

LARO staff have been involved in many aspects of natural resources management over the decades. In the 1970s, natural resources management was still a collateral duty of rangers. Since then, more funding and staffing has been provided, with some support coming from outside entities. Management issues include the sport fishery, wildlife mitigation projects, forest and noxious weeds management, and water quality and pollution.

Over the years, interagency coordination of fisheries on Lake Roosevelt has sometimes been fragmented. Occasionally, LARO's jurisdiction over fish and wildlife has been questioned. In 1990, LARO requested a solicitor's opinion on the jurisdiction between the state of Washington and the Park Service on fish and wildlife management, but the requested opinion was not written. In 1992, the Park Service and the state agreed in a formal Memorandum of Understanding to continue cooperative efforts to manage, protect, and enhance the fisheries and wildlife resources of mutual concern, with consultation prior to implementing research, plans, programs, or regulations affecting fish and wildlife. [101]

By the 1990s, LARO personnel felt the need for a Lake Roosevelt Fisheries Management Plan to better define its role in the complicated waters of fisheries management on Lake Roosevelt. Such a plan, recently funded by BPA and coordinated by the STI, will address long-standing issues as well as relatively new issues such as the net-pen program and fishing derbies, helping to clarify the responsibilities of the various entities involved. This is an on-going, multi-year project; LARO's role is simply to provide logistical support. [102]