Cutthroat project comesunder fire

Montana Fish, WIldlife and Parks Commissioner Vic Workman intends to end a controversial project aimed at purging hybrid fish populations from alpine lakes in the South Fork Flathead drainage.

Workman, a Whitefish resident, said on Monday he has serious concerns and questions about the project, which got under way last October after several years in development. State biologists applied Rotenone, a natural toxin that deprives fish of oxygen, to Black and Blackfoot lakes in the Jewel Basin.

The project's goal is to treat a total of 21 alpine lakes over 10 years to get rid of Yellowstone cutthroat and rainbow trout that threaten to corrupt the genetics of Montana's largest stronghold population of westslope cutthroat trout.

The plan is to promptly restock each lake with pure westslope.

"I'm going to be trying to stop that project as it sits today," Workman said.

He said he has recently received information that Rotenone may cause long-term environmental harm, but he would not elaborate because he has yet to thoroughly review the information.

Brian Marotz, special fisheries projects manager at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Kalispell, said Workman recently forwarded a journal article to the fisheries staff about a case in Utah where it was found that Rotenone had harmful effects on aquatic insects.

But in that case, three times the dosage of Rotenone was applied over two 48-hour periods, compared to the eight-hour applications used on Black and Blackfoot lakes. Over time, Rotenone has been used more than 130 times in Northwest Montana, Marotz said, and no harmful impacts on insects have been observed in any of those cases.

"This has got a long track record of not causing those kinds of problems when done correctly," Marotz said.

Workman has other problems with the project. He said he is skeptical that hybrid populations can be entirely stopped in the South Fork drainage, because hybrid fish cannot be successfully removed from large water bodies, including Hungry Horse Reservoir and Big Salmon Lake in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

"I don't think the project will succeed to the point that it was sold to the public to begin with," he said.

The project also was sold with assurances that fisheries would quickly be restored after the lakes are treated. Workman is skeptical of that claim, too.

"That certainly has not happened in my view at Whale Lake," he said, referring to a lake in the North Fork Flathead drainage that was treated with Rotenone and restocked several years ago.

"The quality of fishing there is nowhere what it used to be."

Finally, Workman said he has heard from plenty of constituents who are critical of the project.

"In my view, the majority of people who fish those lakes want them left alone because they are high-quality fisheries," he said.

The alpine lakes project is funded entirely by fisheries mitigation money from the Bonneville Power Administration, which joined with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Flathead National Forest in developing an environmental impact statement.

The project has strong support among state biologists, who consider hybridization a major long-term threat to the South Fork's westslope cutthroat population.

Workman said he will schedule the project for discussion at an upcoming commission meeting, or perhaps for a conference call discussion with other commissioners.

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