SANDPOINT, ID – The Center for Biological Diversity and the Idaho Conservation League filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging a commercial marina and luxury housing development project located near Lake Pend Oreille and Sandpoint, Idaho.
In a lawsuit filed Dec. 18 in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, the conservation groups argue that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Army Corps of Engineers did not take into account the impact the Idaho Club Lakeside Marina Development would have on bull trout, which are a species threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act.
In the filing, the Center for Biological Diversity and Idaho Conservation League challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s July 30 concurrence decision that the project is not likely to adversely affect bull trout.
“With construction crews already plowing ahead, federal agencies need to protect threatened bull trout from this misguided zombie project once and for all,” Sarah Brown, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Northern Rockies program, wrote in a written statement. “Carving up the North Branch of the creek could worsen polluted runoff into Lake Pend Oreille and put crosshairs on bull trout right in their critical spawning area. It’s time for the agencies to seriously consider the many threats this project poses.”
The development project was authorized adjacent to Trestle Creek, which the conservation groups say is one of the most important bull trout spawning streams in the Pacific Northwest. In court filings, the conservation groups say Trestle Creek has among the highest number of bull trout egg nests in all of Lake Pend Oreille’s tributaries. Trestle Creek flows into Lake Pend Oreille.
In a press release issued Dec. 23, the Center for Biological Diversity announced that in response to its lawsuit, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered a stop to all construction work on the Idaho Club marina and housing development.
In their order to stop construction work, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrote that work on the North Branch of Trestle Creek cannot occur until the stream has dry, or no flow conditions.
The Center for Biological Diversity says that work had occurred on the project while the stream was still flowing, despite conditions in place that the stream had to be dry.
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