Lakes Commission losing future funding

SANDPOINT — Future funding has been cut off for one of the most vigilant water quality and quantity watchdogs for Pend Oreille and Priest lakes.

Lawmakers voted on Thursday to cease funding the Pend Oreille Basin Commission’s budget, Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, said on Friday.

Eskridge and Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, both of whom hold seats on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, voted against the move.

“We were the only ‘no’ votes,” said Eskridge.

Eskridge said the state had been budgeting approximately $74,000 for the commission, which interfaces with state and federal agencies and advises Idaho on water quality and management issues in the basin. It was formed in 2003 by former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.

Legislators moved to halt the funding as the state grapples with sharp declines in revenue, Eskridge said.

“We’ve got to cut the budget and that’s part of the process,” he said.

The Lakes Commission is comprised of volunteers. The funding paid for office space, wages for the commission’s project coordinator and various operating expenses.

The commission has funding to last through the state’s fiscal year, which wraps at the end of June, said Erin Mader, the commission’s project coordinator.

The Lakes Commission will remain intact despite the loss of funding.

“It will continue to exist and that might be what they do — try to continue it without any funding,” Mader said.

Mader said the commission might also seek out other forms of funding such as grants and donations. Eskridge said he and Keough would continue to hunt for additional state funding, but was not overly optimistic.

Board Chairman Ford Elsaesser could not be reached for comment on Friday. A message left on his mobile phone was not returned.

Although the commission’s funding was crimped, funding for water quality monitoring was approved by JFAC, a development that Mader and Eskridge found some measure of solace in.

Eskridge said monitoring on the Clark Fork River is particularly valuable in light of the proposed Rock Creek mine in northwestern Montana. Developers of the copper and silver mine seek to discharge treated wastewater from the project into the Clark Fork, which flows into Lake Pend Oreille.

“We want to have a good database for the river so we can determine whether or not anything’s happening to it, so that monitoring is pretty important,” said Eskridge.

The Idaho Conservation League is relieved the monitoring funding made the cut, but is dismayed that the commission’s funding didn’t.

The group points out that the Lakes Commission has been watch-dogging a Bonneville Power Administration proposal to fluctuate the level of Lake Pend Oreille to maximize its use for power generation. It also helped design the state’s program for inspecting boats for aquatic invasive species.

“Without a budget, however, it’s pretty hard for the eight-member commission to do much investigating or strategy development,” the ICL’s Susan Drumheller said in a blog posting on Friday.