Shoreline project expanded

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

A shoreline-protection project for a federal waterfowl-production area at the head of Flathead Lake has been expanded to include neighboring private property.

Work on the first phase of the project started this week, after years of unabated shoreline erosion at the waterfowl-production area.

The project was expanded to provide a wave-absorbing gravel and cobble beach along 1,450 feet of shoreline owned by Becky Madsen. In exchange, Madsen is providing use of a road on her property for trucks and other equipment to carry out similar beach construction along the waterfowl-production area frontage during the next five years.

"I think things are looking good," said Steve Kallin, manager of the waterfowl-production area and other Fish and Wildlife Service refuges in Northwest Montana. "This is a complicated project that takes involvement from a lot of partners and stakeholders, and all of the stakeholders have been instrumental in coming to consensus and developing a strategy that is going to be a good fit for this area."

The project design was developed by Mark Lorang, a research assistant professor at the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station who long has advocated the use of "dynamic equilibrium beaches" as a superior alternative to armored seawalls for protecting vulnerable wetlands at the head of the lake.

Lorang said there was several months of negotiations about the project design with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and PPL Montana, the power company that operates Kerr Dam at the foot of the lake.

The first phase of the project involves beach construction on the Madsen shoreline and installing "brush bundles" for erosion control along roughly 400 feet of the eastern Flathead River shoreline just north of the lake.

The bundle structures will be made of vertically stacked Christmas trees that were contributed by Flathead Valley residents early this year. The trees will be held in place by posts, creating a wall-like sieve that will be shored up with captured river debris and sediments.

"We are putting in an area near the river mouth that is exposed to current, wind waves and boat wakes," Lorang said. "It kind of has everything erosive acting in that area. We'll see how they hold and how much sediment we can trap from the river."

Lorang estimates that nearly 3,000 Christmas trees were collected. He figures that about 80 percent of those trees will be used by the initial, 400-foot experimental shoreline. More will be done in years to come.

The biggest phase of the project - building gravel beach structures to protect the waterfowl-production area - won't get under way until at least next winter, when the lake level drops.

That work can't get under way during the next month, before the lake starts rising, because it requires approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said Jon Jourdonnais, director of hydro licensing and compliance for PPL Montana.

"It's largely going to be a federal approval process that we will have to go through," he said. "That may effect our ability to start phase two in '08."

Kallin is optimistic the FERC approval process will not seriously delay shoreline protection for the waterfowl-production area because of the support that the project has from an array of agencies.

"I anticipate that will be beneficial in getting FERC approval," he said.

Kerr Dam was relicensed by FERC in 1998, with provisions requiring shoreline protection and restoration at the head of the lake. But a different approach - using an armored-seawall structure - initially was proposed.

Lorang and others objected to that approach, saying it would cut off interaction between the lake and the north shore wetlands, which function as a filtering "kidney" for the lake.

For more than 20 years, Lorang had advocated using gravel beach structures to dissipate wave energy and curb aggressive shoreline erosion. During that period, wind-driven waves have chewed away hundreds of acres of wetlands on the north shore, losses that Lorang has measured every year.

The gravel beach approach was successfully demonstrated at other locations around the lake, but it wasn't until two years ago when it was put to work on the north shore, on property owned by Bigfork businessman and former legislator Bob Keenan.

Lorang said that project created momentum that prompted others to follow with similar shoreline efforts, including the waterfowl-production-area project.

Between the Keenan property, a neighboring property, and Madsen's shoreline, Lorang said about 6,000 feet of shoreline will be protected.

The Madsen property is for sale, and Jourdonnais confirmed that an effort is under way, coordinated by PPL Montana, to secure a conservation purchase or easement of the property. The property potentially could be added to the adjacent waterfowl-production area.

"We are involved in trying to locate and coordinate various conservation partners that could purchase the Madsen property," he said. "There are a lot of options for making that happen."

Another major component in the shoreline protection plan is PPL Montana's voluntary move to lower the lake by 2 feet from full pool by Oct. 31. The lake's biggest wind storms and wave erosion historically occur after that date.

That change, according to Lorang, will have a "huge" impact on reducing shoreline erosion around the lake.

And it comes at a cost of an estimated $250,000 in lost power-generation revenue, with PPL Montana releasing the water rather than holding it back for power generation after Oct. 31.

It is not required under terms of its federal license for Kerr Dam, Jourdonnais said, but PPL Montana is required to pay for mitigating and preventing erosion losses at the north shore waterfowl-production area. He estimates the cost of the project will be about $2 million, but the price tag will depend on contract bidding for the project.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com