State role in gill-netting is tricky

It appears there has been movement recently toward re-establishing co-management between the state and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on Flathead Lake.

That would be a good thing, considering that the regulatory and management uniformity that comes with co-management is preferable to the disarray that can arise without it. 

If the players involved can get on the same page, that is! 

So far that doesn’t seem to be the case. Tribal officials want to implement lake-trout suppression measures, including gill-netting, that were outlined in a co-management plan that expired at the end of 2010. But state officials are pressing for development of an entirely new plan, largely because the previous one is expired.

The state recognizes that developing a new plan will take time, and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Jeff Hagener has made an overture for the department “to jointly cooperate in a research netting project that will help us better assess management possibilities for revised plan.”

Netting lake trout from Flathead Lake is controversial, to say the least, and we have already taken the position that the most aggressive netting option the tribes want to pursue would have questionable benefits compared to the costs and risks involved. 

While a more cautious approach to netting is preferable, the state still may be positioning itself on top of a slippery slope that leads to an all-out netting effort that would substantially impact Flathead Lake’s only remaining sport fishery with very real economic impacts.

Therefore, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials should tread very carefully if they intend to implement netting, even gradually, under the auspices of the environmental impact statement developed by the tribes over the last couple of years. Department officials weren’t involved in development of that EIS, partly because they regarded it as being flawed in terms of public involvement.

Well, they aren’t alone in that observation. 

Flathead Wildlife Inc., a regional rod and gun club staunchly opposed to netting on the lake, points out that only one meeting was held regarding the draft EIS this year, and that the only scoping meeting held prior to development of the draft was in reference to a pilot netting project. Flathead Wildlife contends that this is “grossly inadequate for a project of this magnitude” and in violation of established standards under the National Environmental Policy Act.

“We are prepared to litigate if necessary,” the club’s president stated In a letter to the Bonneville Power Administration.

That’s a tangle that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks should try to avoid.

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