Caution advised in lake review

Representatives of the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes make compelling arguments in support of gill-netting lake trout from Flathead Lake, but the public still should insist that they back up those arguments, in detail, in a forthcoming environmental review.

We previously took a position that the tribes should develop a complete environmental impact statement for their proposed pilot netting project, but they have since decided that a more expeditious environmental assessment will provide an adequate review.

Tom McDonald, head of the tribal fish and wildlife division, insisted in a recent meeting with the editorial board that the environmental assessment will be thorough and developed with transparency.

It definitely needs those ingredients. The tribes are proposing a project that will definitely have an impact on the lake, and could have potential unintended consequences.

The tribal plan calls for using angling and netting to remove 60,000 lake trout in 2010, followed by 80,000 in 2011 and 100,000 in 2012. It will involve the use of large gill nets which can kill fish in bulk. Some native bull trout and cutthroat trout, species that the project is intended to benefit, would be caught in the nets as well, although not in the same numbers as lake trout.

Not surprisingly, the project has critics with concerns and many valid questions.

Above all, there are worries that the netting will impact the popular and economically lucrative lake trout fishery to such a degree that angling on the lake would decline substantially.

McDonald stresses that in order to keep a lid on lake trout in the distant future, anglers will always be needed more than netting. And that’s why there will be a trigger to ensure that fishing continues: if angler use on the lake drops below a certain level, then netting will stop.

While critics are concerned that a declining fishery will have economic impacts, McDonald has an interesting take on that subject. The bull trout population declined as a direct result of competing lake trout, to the point of being listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. That in itself has led to enormous costs, including lost bull trout fishing opportunities in the Flathead Basin and long-term spending on recovery efforts.

And those efforts, including considerable restrictions in logging and other types of land management, have failed to produce a recovered bull trout population so far.

Economic impact is just one area that should be thoroughly explored in developing a draft environmental assessment. There are many questions regarding the project, and the tribes must attempt to answer as many as possible.

Meetings to gather public input will be held on April 12 in Polson and April 13 in Kalispell. The agenda can be found at MackDays.com