Bear Lake Watch Annual Meeting Report

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter
Rich Civic Times


THE RESERVE, Idaho.  June 29, 2013.  Bear Lake Watch Annual Meeting. New officers and board members were elected.  Jodie Burnett will be president; Phil Olsen vice president. New board members are Greg Critchfield, Fred Hunsaker, Ann Johnson, Jim Kimball, Dick Motta, Bryce Neilson, Jerry Phelps Carolyn  Nebeker Rasmussen, Margaret Sargent, and Ted Schmidt.

Bear Lake Watch (BLW) have new and expanding technologies with a new web page, Twitter and Facebook.  The website will be a good source of information about Bear Lake and some of the dangers facing it.  Ryan Critchfield, who announced he was at least thirty years younger than everyone else  in the room, said, “ Young people need to get involved with the preservation of the lake, they do care andwe need to get them involved in ways they communicate.”

Bryce Nielson said “As a scientist, I can see that the money from the Merlin Olsen Golf Classic Tournament needs to be used carefully. We partnered with the Quinny Natural Resources Library at USU to build a searchable database of everything that has been done or studied at Bear Lake.  This will be a useful resource.   This is a foundation to start from” Nielson suggested that members give input as to what Bear Lake Watch should study.   Some ideas include literal zone research, preventing invasive species, mud encroachment and understanding the evaporation on Bear Lake.  BLW can partner with state agencies to leverage research dollars.   Neilson talked about The Bear River Land Conservancy, which is trying to get willing owners to give land or put a conservation easement on land to protect  the vistas.  The old Lakota land has now been preserved by a conservation easement.  

David Cottle discussed lake levels and phragmites.  “This will be a scary year, it will be like 2001 when the irrigators used their allocations up to the limit.  They are not watering grains so they will have water for potatoes and corn crops.  They have worked hard to conserve water.”

 In 2012, the lake was at 5915.5 feet.  It is now 5916.05 and  it will go down another 3 feet.   This is going to be a very dry year.  Irrigators started pumping May 25 this year.  The natural Bear River flow is so low the major irrigation companies are relying on their storage.  All 5 pumps at Lifton are going.  Irrigation demand peaks around the Fourth of July.  Irrigators and Pacific Corps are working very hard to conserve the water so that there will be enough water for agricultural use this summer.

Phragmites are being attacked.  Last year the Reserve decided to spray them around their beach and other land owners joined in to share cost to treat 160 acres of phragmities by spraying from a helicopter     This year they’d like to do the same on the east side of the lake.  Anyone who would like to participate should contact BLW.  Land owners can take out phragmites on their land but should work with Idaho or Utah authorities.  They use aquatic friendly form of Round Up. 

Claudia Cottle talked about Utah Water Future, Governor Herbert  has created a team to ask about the future of water in the state and how are we going to provide water for future growth and preserve our resources.   BLW will send out information about the meetings held across the state.  Cottle said “We should be at those meetings.  We want more than water development, but we also want to preserve our Lake as a recreational Lake as well as water storage.  Having voices from all over the state is important, so go to the local meetings.”