Border crossing

Flathead fish spawning in Canada

When the westslope cutthroat spawners were captured and surgically fitted with radio transmitters on the Flathead River between Columbia Falls and Kalispell this spring, state researchers had no idea where they'd swim to.

Now they do.

And the results support a growing body of research showing the importance of the Canadian Flathead drainage to native Montana fisheries.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks research specialist Durae Belcer has been flying up the North Fork Flathead drainage recently, tracking cutthroats that carry implanted radio transmitters.

Last week, there were six adult cutthroats spawning north of the border. This week, two "tagged" fish remained in tributaries a few miles north of the Canadian border.

"Four have moved out and are back in the river," Belcer said. "They are south of the border already, just above Polebridge."

There have been similar results in three previous years of tracking tagged cutthroat, said Clint Muhlfeld, a state fisheries biologist who is leading the research.

"Every year that we've tagged cutthroat in four years we've had cutthroat spawning in B.C.," Muhlfeld said.

This year's efforts involved tracking a total of 14 cutthroats, all caught on the main stem of the Flathead below Columbia Falls. Nine of those fish moved into the North Fork Flathead River, and of those, six went north of the border.

The tracking results are part of an increased effort to gather biological information in the Canadian Flathead because of a looming potential for open-pit coal mining in the upper reaches of the remote watershed.

Concerns about mining impacts have been heightened recently by news that the energy conglomerate British Petroleum is seeking a permit to pursue coal bed methane exploration in the Canadian Flathead.

The fisheries research has been adding up, showing that Montana's migrant bull trout and cutthroat populations use the Canadian Flathead extensively, Muhlfeld said.

The Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks research also has involved electrofishing and bull trout spawning-bed counts in the upper tributaries of the Canadian Flathead.

Last fall's count came up with 75 bull trout "redds" in a two-mile stretch just below the Flathead River's convergence with Foisey Creek, the drainage where the Cline Mining Corp. is proposing an open-pit coal mine.

"That tells us that a lot of fish that are spawning in British Columbia are spawning right below Foisey Creek," Muhlfeld said.

Bull trout are migratory fish, with life cycles that take them from spawning streams all the way south to Flathead Lake.

Cutthroats are less predictable. Some become "resident" fish that hold up near natal streams for most of their lives, but others are migratory in the same fashion as bull trout.

Muhlfeld is convinced cutthroats that are born in the Canadian Flathead are migratory by necessity. Seasonally low flows, ice and other harsh conditions force them to move, he said.

The tagged cutthroats that spawn in the Canadian Flathead support his theory.

Pure westslope cutthroats have a high tendency to return to their natal streams for spawning once they are adults, leading Mulhfeld to conclude that the Canadian spawners tagged in Montana originated in British Columbia.

Last year, Muhlfeld's crew pursued electrofishing surveys in Foisey Creek and two converging tributaries, one of them unnamed and the other called Crabb Creek.

The Crabb Creek survey came up with 15 cutthroats. The unnamed creek had five cutthroat, two bull trout and five sculpin. Foisey Creek had 74 cutthroat, 18 bull trout and 93 sculpin.

The numbers are significant because the three tributaries had never been sampled before.

"We did these intensive surveys to document what was there," Muhlfeld said.

That is the main goal behind a broader ongoing baseline data study aimed at determining existing ecological conditions in the transboundary Flathead. The work - focusing on water chemistry, sediment measurements, fisheries and wildlife - will enable Montana to demonstrate impacts should mining development proceed in the Canadian Flathead.

Fisheries will be a central issue for Montana if mining proposals advance, predicts Erin Sexton, a research scientist with the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station.

BP is undertaking an "evaluation of potential development" for coal-bed methane in the Crowsnest coal field, seeking permits for exploration in both the Elk River and upper Flathead River drainages.

"Our project is in the very early appraisal stage, which is expected to last three to five years at a cost of approximately $100 million," the company said in a May 15 letter to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

The company aims to establish up to a dozen exploratory wells in the upper Flathead. That development alone would have impacts on baseline conditions in the pristine valley, Sexton said, because it would involve roads and well pads the size of football fields.

"I think this is a significant challenge to the Flathead River Basin in British Columbia," said Rich Moy, chief of the water management bureau for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. "I think the potential impacts to fisheries, sediments and to mid- and large-sized carnivores will be significant."

A transboundary arbitration panel called the International Join Commission ruled in the 1980s that an open-pit coal mine proposed in the lower portion of the Canadian Flathead would have impacts on fisheries.

"Back in 1988, bull trout were not listed and now they are a listed species," Moy said, adding that the growing body of research suggests impacts to fisheries will be a "more pressing issue" than it was in the 1980s.

As chairman of Montana's Flathead Basin Commission, Moy has been involved in ongoing negotiations with the British Columbia provincial government over development of a memorandum of understanding for managing the transboundary Flathead region.

Moy said that such an agreement is sorely needed because Montana is repeatedly responding to individual energy development projects just north of the border. The state is seeking an agreement that would allow for comprehensive research and a moratorium on industrial development in the transboundary Flathead, a valley that borders an International Heritage site and Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

"This is the fifth major energy development proposal in the last three years for the Canadian Flathead," Moy said of BP's exploration plans.

Moy said talks for developing an agreement have reached a "stalemate." The province wants a memorandum of understanding that would preclude the International Joint Commission from intervening in disputes over the transboundary Flathead, Moy said, but Montana wants the joint commission available to ensure that Montana will not be impacted by industrial development north of the border.

The international commission, made up of U.S. and Canadian members arbitrates the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, which includes a section prohibiting one nation from polluting the waters of the other nation.

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