Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Efforts to Enhance the Lake Roosevelt Fishery, 1940s-1980s

During the 1940s, fishing at Lake Roosevelt was extremely poor. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife tried to establish kokanee salmon (landlocked sockeye salmon) by stocking the lake between 1942 and 1945 with almost 7.5 million kokanee and rainbow fry. This effort was a failure, although some kokanee did migrate into the lake in the late 1940s from tributary streams and from Arrow Lakes in British Columbia. Many of these were injured or killed as they went over the dam. As at other new reservoirs, the fish populations grew quickly after the reservoir was filled but then slowed down after a couple of years when nutrients were exhausted. A new reservoir generally has far fewer fish species than its predecessor river did. The most abundant species in the newly formed Lake Roosevelt were those considered "scrap fish": squawfish, carp, and suckers. [20]

Lake Roosevelt fisherman with rainbow trout, 1943. Photo courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Grand Coulee (USBR Archives 965, 7-30-43).

LARO personnel firmly believed that the state of the sport fishery would influence much of the future recreational development of the area. In May 1947, at the request of Superintendent Claude Greider, representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, OIA, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife met at Coulee Dam to initiate a game-fish management program at Lake Roosevelt. In 1947 and 1948, the state seined 150 tons of carp from the Kettle River area in an effort to control that fish species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to undertake a preliminary limnological study of Lake Roosevelt to examine existing fish populations, water conditions, and fish food supplies. LARO provided water transportation and office space to the cooperating agencies and distributed questionnaires on game fish catches to key fishermen in the area. [21]

The 1948 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study found that Lake Roosevelt had high turbidity and practically no thermal gradient, meaning that its water temperatures were fairly uniform. The authors recommended further study and a limited stocking program of a fish that would remain in the lake through the summers. Further investigations were not funded, however. Experts believed that a significant fishery would not develop because the annual drawdowns hindered access to tributaries and because the cold, deep lake was not conducive to the growth of plants and plankton necessary to establish a food chain for sport fish. The few fishermen on the lake reported catching shiners, whitefish, squawfish, carp, and suckers. Occasional catches of rainbow trout, brook trout, kokanee salmon, kamloops trout, cutthroat trout, char (dolly varden trout), and largemouth and smallmouth black bass were also reported. [22]

In 1952 and 1953, the Public Health Service conducted the next study of Lake Roosevelt's fishery. The biologist identified several factors hindering the sport fishery: low fertility, summer water temperatures above or below optimal for various species, drawdowns that hurt plant production and fish production and reproduction, and large flows during spring floods. The report recommended planting fingerling kamloops trout and possibly kokanee salmon in the lake. [23]

Perhaps as a result of this study, in 1956 a new organization known as Washington Kamloops, Inc., began stocking Lake Roosevelt with kamloops (rainbow trout) raised in hatcheries. The Kettle Falls-based group worked with the state to plant kamloops. The success of the various plantings, however, was very poor, and they ended in 1961. [25]

LARO's 1964 Master Plan noted that all resident species of fish in Lake Roosevelt had been introduced except for cutthroat trout and sturgeon. LARO staff and local fishermen continued to debate the question of whether or not Lake Roosevelt could ever be a good sport fishing lake. Until a fishery research program was undertaken, one LARO employee commented, "fishing on the lake will remain, as it is today, nothing more than something to talk and argue about." [26]

Many local business people felt they were losing tourists who might visit the area if the fishing were better. The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries planted a test run of sockeye salmon in the San Poil River. LARO personnel recommended removing "scrap fish" from Lake Roosevelt. Commercial gillnetting of carp for fertilizer in the north end of the lake was quite successful for a few years. [27]

Carl Anderson of Daisy, Washington, ice fishing on Lake Roosevelt for whitefish and trout, February 1952. Photo courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, Grand Coulee (USBR Archives 1340).

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife conducted a study of Lake Roosevelt fish populations and food sources in 1962 and 1963. The biologists concluded that cyprinids such as carp and squawfish dominated the Lake Roosevelt fishery because they used more plant material and organic debris than the salmonid species; the impoundment of the reservoir had increased suitable habitat for these scrap fish and reduced competitive species. The authors found that zooplankton abundance was only 2-5 percent that of natural lakes. They concluded that it was unlikely that any of the game fish then in the lake would develop suitable populations for a sport fishery. This study was soon contradicted by a 1966 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries study that found that there were, in fact, abundant food resources, ample spawning areas, and sufficient habitat to support an excellent game fish population and perhaps a commercial fishery in the reservoir. Turbidity was the most limiting factor, but this was expected to improve as Canadian dams and reservoirs were built upstream. LARO agreed to help with further research recommended in this report. [28]

Sport fishing on Lake Roosevelt began to improve noticeably in the early 1960s because of an increased walleye population. The original source of Lake Roosevelt's walleye is not known for sure; one plausible theory is that a Minnesota man planted them in the late 1940s. They tend to do well in the lake because they spawn at times of stable or even rising water levels. The general air of pessimism about Lake Roosevelt's fishing potential began to shift in the mid-1960s as walleye began to attract fishermen. This led to a dramatic increase in boating and fishing, particularly on the Spokane Arm. Local newspapers published articles on this fishery, and in 1969 a LARO park ranger prepared a brochure on walleye fishing. It took native Washington fishermen a while to get used to walleye, but by 1974 locals were heading for the lake after work in search of walleye. LARO personnel were concerned about the lack of a limit on walleye catches until the state imposed a limit of fifteen fish in 1974. [29]

As the fishery improved in the 1960s, the state and the tribes became more interested in the lake's potential as a sport fishery. In 1972 and 1975, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife planted some 1.8 million chinook salmon in Lake Roosevelt, but the success of these and later plantings was negligible. These plantings were reportedly done at the request of the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT), and the Park Service was not contacted. The Spokane Tribe of Indians (STI) requested and received a plant of about 300,000 walleye in the Spokane Arm above the Little Falls dam in 1976. And yet, non-game fish such as squawfish, carp, sucker, shiner, and chub continued to be well adapted to conditions in Lake Roosevelt that included drawdowns, low food availability, and siltation resulting from landslides. [30]

LARO personnel recorded increased boating activity on the lake in the 1970s in response to the improved fishing. A total of some seventy-five thousand people fished on Lake Roosevelt in 1977, more than half from boats and most in the Fort Spokane district. Over 80 percent fished for walleye. LARO built temporary fish-cleaning stations in several campgrounds to handle the increased use. [31]

By the early 1980s, walleye comprised over 90 percent of the catch on Lake Roosevelt, with rainbow trout and yellow perch about 3 percent each. The Park Service took advantage of the regional walleye enthusiasm by offering walleye fishing clinics and a small guidebook to the fishery. Local tribal members began to rely on walleye for subsistence. The walleye population in Lake Roosevelt, and thus the harvest, began to decline in the early 1980s because of overharvesting, a declining prey base of yellow perch, and other factors. Stricter harvest regulations enacted in 1985, combined with the closing of the Spokane Arm during the spawning season, stabilized the decline. A length limit for walleye was imposed in 1990 to protect spawners, encourage harvesting smaller fish, and allow anglers to keep trophy walleyes. By 1989, according to a study sponsored by the Bonneville Power Administration, the Lake Roosevelt fishery was producing an estimated $5.2 million for the regional economy. [32]

The fishery in Crescent Bay Lake was not established until the late 1980s. Untreated sewage and then treated sewage had flowed into Crescent Bay Lake from Grand Coulee and later Electric City since its formation in 1942. Reclamation retained responsibility for the water quality of Crescent Bay Lake. In 1979, it received permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to flush the lake by draining and refilling it, and the agency began a multi-year project of bringing in water from the Banks Lake Feeder Canal to shorten the seasonal algae bloom and reduce the odor problem. The town of Grand Coulee was scheduled to begin construction of a wastewater treatment plant in 1979, but funding for this necessary piece of the development puzzle was deferred by the Washington Department of Ecology. By this time, eutrophication had resulted in several inches of sludge on the bottom of the lake, and it was unusable for fishing, swimming, or boating. In 1982, LARO staff met with local city, state, and Reclamation officials about the problem. As LARO Superintendent Gary Kuiper commented, "We must all agree that today's conditions at Crescent Bay Lake are intolerable. A lake, beautiful to the eye, now fully merits the only name by which scores of people recognize it...Poop Lagoon." The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a grant to the City of Grand Coulee for a new sewage treatment plant; it was completed in 1987, finally ending discharges of waste into Crescent Bay Lake. Reclamation subsequently improved the water quality of the lake, and efforts began again to improve the fishery. Rainbow trout were planted in the lake in 1987, 1988, and 1998, and a small local recreational fishery developed. [33]