Gill netting plan is too full of potential holes

No one wants to be accused of not caring about the future of bull trout in the Flathead Basin, but that’s how critics of a controversial proposal for using gill nets to remove competing lake trout from Flathead Lake are being painted.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have a draft environmental impact statement with three options for netting lake trout and one option for not proceeding with netting, and we have every reason to believe that within a few weeks the tribal council will approve the most aggressive netting proposal.

That’s because tribal officials have been developing and working on the proposal, at great cost, for several years and they will prefer to have the greatest latitude possible in suppressing the lake trout population over the next 50 years.

There’s one good reason for the tribes to follow that path: It might help increase bull-trout numbers throughout the Flathead system.

But on the other side of the ledger, there are many more compelling reasons not to use gill nets to help remove 143,000 lake trout annually under the most aggressive alternative.

For starters, the lake and its fisheries are supposed to be resources that are co-managed with the state. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is not participating in this endeavor. The agency has indeed raised multiple concerns that should be heeded.

Under a co-management plan for the lake that expired in 2010, the state had agreed to go along with netting if there was evidence bull-trout numbers had dropped below a certain threshold, and that hasn’t happened yet, according to surveys of bull-trout spawning beds called redds. Spawning success is indeed below peak numbers in the 1980s, but the decline since then has leveled off.

Again, netting might help bull trout, but maybe not. State biologists are concerned about bull trout becoming victims of netting “by-catch.” When the tribes estimate the population of adult bull trout in the system to be just 3,000, even a minimal by-catch every year could put a significant dent in the population even if the greatest care is taken to avoid it. The tribes estimate that “over the long term,” bull trout by-catch could amount to 467 fish, but adult bull trout numbers could grow by 4,650 under the most aggressive netting option.

Those estimates have skeptics within Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

“We  believe the analysis underestimates the risk to bull trout from the proposed gill netting actions and overestimates the benefit to bull trout,” an agency position paper states. “We also believe that the impacts to the recreational fishery are underestimated.”

Lake trout are the only real remaining recreational fishery on Flathead Lake, and removing 140,000 of them a year surely will have economic impacts. Total angler spending on the lake is estimated to be just over $20 million annually, and the tribes project that the most aggressive netting would lead to an 11.6 percent reduction in angler spending. We think that after a few years, angling on the lake will pretty much dry up, along with the incentive for anglers to invest in expensive equipment and outings as lake trout catch rates progressively diminish.

Charter-fishing businesses, hotels, sporting goods stores and all other kinds of retailers that anglers support will feel the pain.

 Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks also raises concerns that aggressive netting could lead to unintended impacts on the lake’s complicated food web. Young lake trout feed on mysis shrimp, which in turn feed on zooplankton. More mysis might mean less zooplankton and increased potential for algae blooms on the lake. No one really knows if that or other unforeseen impacts could result from netting.

A bothersome aspect of the tribal proposal is it seems to have a costs-are-no-object element to it. The annual cost of removing 140,000 lake trout is estimated to be $934,000, and the tribes are seeking the money from the Bonneville Power Administration’s fish and wildlife programs for mitigating damage caused by construction of the federal hydropower system in the Pacific Northwest.

Flathead Electric Cooperative officials estimate that fully a third of every power bill goes to fish and wildlife mitigation. Granted, the lion’s share goes to salmon recovery in Washington and Oregon, but it seems that local co-op customers who are opposed to netting would have a big problem having to help pay for it.

Given the state’s lack of support for the netting proposal, it’s not a stretch to imagine there will be efforts, possibly including litigation, to block BPA funding.

What if, after 10 years of netting, there is only a slight increase in bull-trout numbers? Does that justify another 10 years of netting? Under this plan, it can go on for 50 years even if the benefits seem minimal to most people but are deemed by decision makers to be worthwhile.

This is a project that may or may not work, but it certainly will have peripheral negative impacts and possibly unpredictable impacts over five decades. The benefits have not been justified, compared to the costs and risks that come with this project.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.