Let's move quickly to curb erosion plans

PPL Montana's announcements last week represent profound changes for the better in reducing shoreline erosion on Flathead Lake.

The proposals from the company that operates Kerr Dam at the foot of Flathead Lake are long overdue. But they should be appreciated nonetheless.

For starters, the company has proposed lowering the lake's elevation by a foot from its historical average on Nov. 1. The University of Montana's Yellow Bay Biological Station has for years insisted that lowering the lake during the stormiest months of the year would be the most effective way to curb shoreline erosion around the lake - a change that also would improve water quality.

The station has documented how the worst shoreline erosion occurs during big windstorms that are most prevalent after Nov. 1. The bright side of the proposal is that it would have other benefits - less damage to docks, shore stations and seawalls and no substantial impacts on boating.

But it will cost the power company an estimated $200,000 a year in lost hydropower revenue. That sacrifice is commendable.

The power company also has proposed a detailed design for building gravel beach structures to stop erosion along the federal waterfowl production areas on the north shore. Erosion-control efforts there are sorely overdue, considering the shoreline has receded roughly a mile in some places since Kerr Dam became operational in 1938.

The failure to establish some form of erosion control on waterfowl production areas over the last decade borders on malfeasance on the part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that manages the areas. Terms of a 1998 relicensing agreement for Kerr Dam required shoreline protection measures and habitat restoration on the north shore.

While PPL Montana has been prepared to pay for it all, the Fish and Wildlife Service only temporarily considered a plan for a seawall structure, but that was dropped after it ran into considerable opposition. The agency failed to take an active leading role in pursuing an alternative approach.

So the power company has taken the lead, and now it's up to the wildlife agency to approve the proposed design or come up with something better - and it should do so with urgency.

The beach design developed for PPL Montana by Mark Lorang of the biological station is worthy of serious consideration because of his success in using similar shoreline protection methods elsewhere around the lake.

But the design - and the proposal to lower the lake's elevation - still have to go through reviews and a permit process.

The north shore doesn't need a protracted period of bureaucratic dithering. PPL has done its part so far. The Fish and Wildlife Service and other permitting agencies need to act expeditiously and do the same.